


The Polyphonic Tides of Revolution

by defractum (nyargles)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Artificial Intelligence, Asexual Enjolras, M/M, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 12:06:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2651456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyargles/pseuds/defractum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"People usually have a destination in mind. They want to get to the next galaxy or visit a friend on a moon. If you don't have a destination, that means you're just trying to get away from where you are."</p><p>The stranger sinks down into the seat gingerly, as if Grantaire might brandish the guns he really does own and tell him to fuck off at any moment. "I could be a criminal."</p><p>"Yeah, well." Grantaire shrugs. "I actually am a criminal."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic for [echocantstopscreaming](http://echocantstopscreaming.tumblr.com/) for my fic giveaway, with the prompt: _a modern royalty au? or a space au fic? a mix of both?_

Enjolras has exactly fifteen minutes of spare time. It says so, right in their schedule.

They tumble through their bedroom door and lock it, scrabbling for the secret commpad they keep hidden under their mattress. They scroll through until they reach Courfeyrac's face, grinning at them even in miniature holoav form, and hopes, seriously, desperately hopes that their friends are free to talk.

"Enjolras!" Courfeyrac's voice booms through the room, threaded with static as it is. "Give me a second to secure your line. How are you?!"

Relief courses through Enjolras. _Tired_ , Enjolras wants to say. _Nervous, nauseous, disgusted_. "I'm fine," they say instead, pulling their mass of hair up into a messy bundle. But then, it's Courfeyrac, so he can probably tell exactly what Enjolras means when they say that, even with light years and bad vidstream connections between them.

"When are you coming to join us?" asks Courfeyrac, the vidstream wobbling and focussing on the underside of his chin as he picks his commpad up and trots across the room, presumably to find Combeferre.

"Soon," says Enjolras, their voice dropping low. Their room is soundproofed, and they check for the bugs every so often but it's just in case. Courfeyrac's eyes widen in alarm, because this isn't Enjolras's usual wishful thinking. They're _serious_. "I have to. I have to get out." They had always known that the chances of being able to sneak some 'personal travel time' in as an excuse to get away to some border planet to help their friends plan the dethroning of the Imperial Emperor was somewhat slim. They just hadn't expected to be locked down to just the palace for the next few months straight.

"It can't be that bad," says Courfeyrac uncertainly. "We'll just come visit you soon."

Enjolras snorts. "I'd love that. You know I would. But that's a very long journey with very little point."

Courfeyrac tsks, as he does when Enjolras is saying something so obviously stupid he can't even be bothered to correct them. "Combeferre, tell Enjolras that seeing them and giving them a hug and then kicking their Imperial arse is not a waste of time."

"Giving you a hug and then kicking your Imperial arse is not a waste of time," says Combeferre drolly, turning away from his navigation station. "Enjolras, how goes the meetings?"

"You could give me a hug if you wanted," says Enjolras. "I can put you up on the holojector right now."

"That is _not_ the same thing," says Courfeyrac sternly.

"Meetings are fine. I have something I need to tell you both." Enjolras pauses. Saying it aloud will make it all the more real to them, and they haven't – won't – accepted that yet. "The Emperor found someone."

"They're remarrying?" asks Combeferre carefully.

Enjolras laughs hollowly. "No, no. For me. They found someone, for _me_."

There's a long pause, and Enjolras looks up at the ceiling so they don't have to deal with the quick, alarmed looks their friends are no doubt sending to each other right now, and suddenly finds that there's a sharp pain in their chest trying to dig itself out; the words spill out by themselves. "I know, I know, it was always going to happen sooner or later, but I could always hope for later. They've probably got decades left in power after all, but I asked them about maybe taking a year or two to travel, and they knew. They _knew_ I'd come see you. So they found someone."

"Who is it?" asks Combeferre, and there's something in his voice – pity, perhaps? – but Enjolras still isn't looking at the vidstream.

"Montparnasse." Enjolras can't help the despairing tone that comes out of themself, and hates themself for the whine it sounds like.

"Urgh."

"I _know_ ," says Enjolras, finally sitting up straight, their voice pitching embarrassingly with emotion. "Of _all_ the people!"

"What are you going to do?" asks Combeferre. Enjolras purses their lips at him, and Combeferre shrugs. "Come on, Enjolras. I know you too well. You're not seriously planning to stay and let yourself be married off to some politician and then get shuffled off to some outer planet."

"I might if the outer planet was New Andromedae," says Enjolras dryly. That's where Courfeyrac and Combeferre are, where they've been trying to get to ever since the three of them graduated from university and they were pulled back into court life with a vengeance, their mere three years of respite deemed enough of a break.

Courfeyrac snorts, and Enjolras wishes that their friends weren't so very good at waiting them out.

"I don't know yet," they say finally. "I'm going to – you're right, I can't stay. I _can't_. I'll figure something out. Cosette will help."

There's a sharp knock at the door, and Enjolras hastily reaches for the commpad. "Got to go," they say, their voice dropping to a whisper. "I'll get in touch when I can."

"Stay safe," says Combeferre, just before they drop the connection and Enjolras shoves the commpad under their mattress again.

"Come in," they call.

A servant enters. "Your Highness, your presence is requested in the conference hall."

Enjolras sighs, and pulls their hair out so it tumbles down their back, shaking it loose. "Of course it is," they say, and stands. Duty calls.

The rest of Enjolras's day is punishingly exhausting. They half-wonders if it's deliberate, whether the Emperor means to tire them out so much they don't have the energy to think about the wedding, and then laughs to themself. Of course it's deliberate. By the time the last meeting – deliberating the increased number of war ships produced by the Alliance – ends, Enjolras sways when they stand.

"Let me," says someone beside them, holding out an arm, and Enjolras turns, almost takes it before realising who it is.

"Montparnasse," they say, suddenly finding the will to stand by the power of their own two legs. "Forgive me, I did not realise you were standing there."

Montparnasse shrugs, and smiles. Enjolras has noticed that his smiles never quite reach his eyes, which is honestly just shoddy acting. Enjolras has known how to fake a proper smile since they were five. "I wasn't. I just thought that with the recent – ah, _arrangements_ , we might get to know each other better." He tucks Enjolras's arm in his, stepping off towards Enjolras's rooms and Enjolras either goes along with him or causes a scene.

"Of _course_ ," says Enjolras. "I'm glad you think so." In truth, they had been but a year apart at the same university, and they had had approximately nothing in common.

"I'm hosting a small get-together tomorrow. Friends only, only the most exclusive of people, of course. I would be honoured if you would come," says Montparnasse. He strokes a hand down Enjolras's forearm and even with three layers of stiffly starched Imperial uniform between them, Enjolras feels their skin crawl at the contact.

Enjolras nods, as they turn the corner to Enjolras's chambers. "The honour is mine," they say, and places a hand over Montparnasse's. Not because they want to, of course, but because it stops Montparnasse from trying to touch them some more. "I would love to get to know your friends better. And," they add, because they know Montparnasse is under no illusion that this is a political play, "it would be beneficial to be seen together."

"You are as wise as you are beautiful."

Enjolras flutters their eyelashes. "Why yes. I am."

That startles a laugh out of Montparnasse, real and unpolished, a rough bark instead of the courtly titter, and Enjolras allows themself a moment to imagine that this might not be as terrible as they had assumed. Perhaps they could do this, really go through with an arranged marriage. Perhaps they could be the one to change Montparnasse, convince him to join Enjolras in the revolution.

When they reach Enjolras's chambers, Montparnasse lingers. "Then, perhaps –" And Enjolras realises that he's angling for an invitation into Enjolras's chambers, and the hope just withers in their stomach.

"Perhaps we can lunch together?" asks Enjolras smoothly. "I'm exhausted after such a long day of meetings and I'm sure you are too. I can't possibly ask to take up more of your time."

Montparnasse concedes, and kisses Enjolras's hand instead. When Montparnasse's made his bows and Enjolras has shut the door behind him, they scrub the back of their hand furiously on a towel, and starts planning. They have to go tonight.

Enjolras takes a shower and scrubs themself clean as they think, runs over the guard schedules and the exit routes available to them. They have to hide their hair – it's far too telltale. They'll cut it when they're out of the palace itself. The docks run all night, with transport boats and produce boats and shipments coming in and out at all times of day, so they don't have to worry about that. From there, they just need to find someone going in the right direction, and hitchhike across the galaxy.

Once out of the shower, rejuvenated from the long day for now, Enjolras pulls on a plain shirt and trousers, cutting the frothy lace off at the wrists and neck. They throw their plainest, most drab clothes into a bag. They don't actually have many of them, but that's a good thing given they want to travel light. Three or four personal credchips get stowed away in different pockets, and then Enjolras looks around at the room full of _things_. They hesitate, and pockets just a single piece of jewellery, their Captain's ring. As much as they rejects the power it affords them, they cannot deny that it will be useful in getting off the planet as quickly as possible.

There's a light tap on the door, and Enjolras freezes. Their drawers are thrown open, their belongings scattered across the room. Their secret commpad is lying on the bed, plain for anyone to see.

"It's me," comes a whisper, and Enjolras near falls with relief. They stagger over to the painting, a relic of millennia gone by and lets Cosette in from the secret passage between their rooms. They're dressed in just their nightclothes and a thick robe over the top of those. There's a bundle in their arms and their tone isn't even accusatory when they say, "You're leaving, aren't you?"

Enjolras swallows. "Yes," they say. It's selfish of them, they know, to run and to leave the burden to fall to Cosette. But they also know it's about so much more than themself. This is Enjolras's chance to make sure that the burden _doesn't_ have to fall to Cosette, or to the Emperor, or to any single person ever again. If Enjolras leaves now, they know how to end the Imperial line. They might not get another chance.

"You'll need these," Cosette says softly, and holds out the things in their hands for Enjolras to see. It's a brown coat with a hood and a bundle of foodpacks. "I got them from Marius."

"Thank you," says Enjolras. "Thank _him_." They shrug into the coat, which hangs a little loose on them – Enjolras is both shorter and slighter than Marius – and wraps a scarf around their face underneath it.

"You should go now," says Cosette. Enjolras nods; the guard change is soon, and another person wearily bundled up against the cold and heading home won't be unusual.

Enjolras rocks back onto their heels, unsure of what to say. "Good luck," they say eventually, knowing that it falls short of what they mean.

Cosette laughs quietly, sadly. "I think I ought to say that." They reach up and tuck straying locks of blond hair back under the hood, and hugs Enjolras for a long time. Enjolras hugs them back, refuses to let themself call it _clinging_ , and hopes the Emperor doesn't make Cosette marry Montparnasse in their stead.

*

The nights have been steadily getting colder for the last month. Enjolras tucks the scarf in against their face, and draws themself up. They're almost a full head shorter than the usual guards, but everyone's hunched up against the bitter winds so they trudges through the staff door with little fanfare. That was probably the easy part.

The rest of the guards filter out towards the employee parking area and Enjolras lingers, waiting until they're gone to duck around and back to get their hoverbike. It's one of the things they brought back from university and hasn't really had the chance to use since; they hope they haven't forgotten how to use it. And then – the streets are something else entirely. Enjolras has a good head for the geography of the planet, but they rarely get to traverse the common streets by themself, so they have to rely on signs, which are sparse, and hope that their memory of being chauffeured to the ports is accurate.

The streets are lit entirely too well for Enjolras's comfort. There are few people at this time of night, and even the hum of the near-silent hoverbike winds their nerves up tighter, each wrong turn convincing them that the guards will have discovered their disappearance and are getting closer to them.

But they aren't. No one comes, and Enjolras eventually finds the port, teeming with people even at this hour. There are workers hauling cargo, ignoring everything but what's in their way, passengers taking the night boats, long-haul travellers stopping in to refuel and suppliers stocking up the surrounding port shops and restaurants. Enjolras parks the hoverbike and slips in amongst them.

Enjolras can't take any of the commercial boats, since that would require ID scanning, so that means trying to get on one of the private ships and paying or bartering for passage. That's even more complicated – Enjolras needs someone who won't ask too many questions about who they are, someone who happens to be going in the right direction, someone who won't be tempted to just call the Imperial guard but also someone not big enough to physically intimidate Enjolras. In fewer words, someone shady as fuck, but also preferably a bit pathetic.

Ambling past a wall of unloaded crates as he people-watches, trying to find someone suitable, Enjolras spots the gleam of metal that someone, a dock worker, most likely, has put down, and bites their lip. They pick it up, and heft it in their hand. A plan is forming.


	2. Chapter 2

 

A cold metal weight touches the warm skin of Grantaire's neck, and he flinches. "Take me with you," says the person behind him. Grantaire closes his eyes and runs through his options. He could fight back, probably, but not before the gun fired and lasered a neat little hole through his neck. He wishes he'd brought his guns with him. They're on one of the innermost planets, where the Imperial Alliance has guardsmen on patrol and civilians don't carry guns, and they're not even doing anything illegal. Of course it's _now_ that Grantaire finds himself threatened.

"Take you with me where?" asks Grantaire, as nonchalantly as he dares, sticking his hands into his pocket.

"Off-world."

The voice comes from somewhere near his shoulderblades, so he's talking to someone shorter than him. It sounds authoritative, but doesn't carry the heft of years behind it. It sounds oddly familiar.

"Off-world is a whole lot of options," says Grantaire. "Is taking you out of the atmosphere and then dumping you in space a possibility?"

The gun digs into his neck, and Grantaire sighs. "All right, all right. No need for that."

"Off-world and to the closest relay station would be enough," says the stranger, and Grantaire considers that. The nearest relay station is in orbit above the planet, somewhere between the surface and the moon, the very smallest increment of 'off-world' one can be. It's where the smaller atmospheric boats dock and people change onto the larger space-travel ships.

He relaxes.

"I'm on a private ship," Grantaire says. "We've got our own longboat that goes direct to our ship but I'm sure we could drop you off at the relay station on the way."

There's a pause. "Thank you," says the stranger then and, well, isn't that strange indeed?

*

Grantaire steps onto Floreal with a bit of an apology. She might technically belong to all of them, but everyone knows that she favours Grantaire, really. The longboat is a bit of an older model, so she doesn't _speak_ here like other boats do, but that definitely doesn't mean she can't communicate. So, when Grantaire steps on board with a stranger, a gun to his neck, Floreal hums inquisitively, radiators protesting the unintended use.

"Sorry," says Grantaire. "Not really my choice. We're not taking him far though, don't worry."

"Who're you talking to?" asks the stranger, voice sharp and the gun instantly pressing harder into Grantaire's neck.

"Floreal," says Grantaire, running his hand across her controls. "Don't be mean, or she'll cut off your oxygen and then we'll see you survive whether you shoot me or not."

"This piece of junk has an AI?" asks the stranger, and all the lights turn off on them. There's a pause. "Right," says the stranger. "Not a piece of junk. Definitely has an AI."

Grantaire laughs, despite himself. He knows the layout in here blindfolded and with one hand tied behind his back. Floreal's not _big_ , which means it's about how he manoeuvres – Grantaire ducks, tucks himself to the left, and then rams his shoulder into the stranger's side with a grunt. They crumple to the floor just as Floreal gets the lights to flicker back on.

"Aw, fucking hell," says Grantaire. "Seriously?"

The stranger grunts, their electronic screwdriver still clutched in their hand. Definitely not a gun. They've also got a thick hood pulled up tight over their head, and a scarf wrapped around their face underneath that; all Grantaire can make out are bright brown eyes, wide and staring at him. They look familiar, tugging at the edges of his memory like the voice did. Grantaire hopes they're not a one-night stand he had previously and doesn't remember; that would just be embarrassing.

"Urgh," says Grantaire. "I'm such an idiot." He drops himself into the pilot seat with a huff, and grabs his guns from the glovebox, strapping the holster around his waist. He's never taking them off again. "You could have _told me_ ," he mutters to Floreal, and she waggles the inscreen wipers, which means that she's laughing at him.

"Come on," says Grantaire, snapping his seatbelt on and performing all the take-off checks. Floreal is perfectly capable of doing it herself, of course, but he likes to pretend to actually do some of the piloting sometimes. "Let's go home. I've been innerworld for too long. Going bloody soft, I am."

The stranger pulls themselves up until they hover just next to Grantaire's seat. Grantaire looks up and back at them, and raises an eyebrow.

"You're still... taking me?"

"Yeah," says Grantaire. "I mean, you could have just asked for a lift out, but yeah." He waves at the other seat in what he hopes is a mostly accommodating manner.

"...Why?"

Grantaire looks studiously out of the window, even though they're just in a line, waiting for their turn out of the spaceport. The big commercial buses to the relay station get first priority, obviously, so it's going to take a while. "People usually have a destination in mind. They want to get to the next galaxy or visit a friend on a moon. If you don't have a destination, that means you're just trying to get away from where you are."

The stranger sinks down into the seat gingerly, as if Grantaire might brandish the guns he really does own and tell him to fuck off at any moment. "I could be a criminal."

"Yeah, well." Grantaire shrugs. "I actually _am_ a criminal."

_*_

"So," says Grantaire, after they've taken off in silence. The windows are screened over right now, to protect their eyes from the glare that comes with trying to blast through the atmosphere, and the cabin is mostly dark aside from Floreal's control panels. "Care to introduce yourself?"

"Not really," says the stranger stiffly.

"Okay," says Grantaire. "Suit yourself."

The Musain is parked just above the atmosphere, and Grantaire watches his uninvited guest's face as it draws into view. He can't see much owing to the scarf, but they have very expressive eyes. The Musain was originally an Amelia X, an old carrier designed for exploration and light combat that's basically all but off the streams now, but that's her disguise more than anything. They spend a lot of time and money constantly upgrading her parts inside, keeping her one of the fastest, sleekest ships in the streams, and she has some pretty sweet Queen Anne VI canons now. Still, Grantaire is aware that it doesn't look impressive.

"What's her name?" asks the stranger, peering at her hull. The Musain doesn't have her name etched on there, probably because they're wanted in half a dozen star systems and the whole of the Apollon galaxy where they are currently and they can't make it _too_ easy.

"That's pretty rude considering you don't want to tell me yours," says Grantaire. He's mostly joking, but the stranger just slumps back into their seat and frowns.

"Hey, Feuilly, I'm coming in," says Grantaire, patching through to the Musain. "Open the hatch for me? Also, I'm bringing an extra. Try not to shoot on sight."

"An extra?" Joly voice comes in over the comms. "Please tell me you're not bringing a hook-up on board again."

"That was _one time_ ," says Grantaire. "And no, I was kind of kidnapped."

There's a momentary pause, where they try to figure out if he was being serious or not, but he didn't drop any of their code words into the conversation so they shouldn't be too suspicious. Grantaire grins as his stranger's eyebrows dip together in consternation, and slides Floreal smoothly into the Musain's belly.

"After you."

The stranger hesitates, but walks out in front of Grantaire in the end. Grantaire watches them as he goes, and taps his badge comm as he locks Floreal up. "Éponine. Run a scan on him, will you?"

"Scan for weapons, run the ID chip, that sort of thing?"

"Yeah. But – discreetly, please." Grantaire pats Floreal goodbye – she'll probably go and join the other longboat with an AI and gossip when Grantaire's gone – and follows the stranger.

The corridor opens right onto the bridge – the Musain isn't _that_ big – where everyone's gathered. "I know we were planning on just going into warp," says Grantaire, "but can we give a lift out to the relay station first?"

Everyone kind of shrugs. They're all fairly relaxed with schedules.

"Thank you," says their uninvited guest.

"In that case, I'm going to see if we can do any proper trading," says Éponine as she replots their course. "On-planet shops are all fucking ripoffs. We need to see some real sailors."

Grantaire waves the stranger onto a spare seat, and slides himself in at the wheel. The wheel is still an actual joystick control, which shows how old the Musain really is. There's a change in the air when they've got all of them in their seats, ready to go, and Grantaire can feel it. It's like everything has slotted back into place, and everyone is where they should be. It's necessary for them to head onto planets, of course, or they'd get cabin fever in a ship the size of the Musain after a while, but it still feels like coming home when they're in space.

The stranger is obviously not knowledgeable about space travel. If they were, they would know that they are taking the long way round the planet towards the relay station, ostensibly so Éponine can run her scans and try to figure out who they are.

Of course, it's Éponine, so it doesn't take her long. She sends her findings to each of them at their actual stations, and Grantaire pulls up the information. His eyebrows get steadily higher, and he swivels to stare at Éponine. She shrugs, as if to say that she's checked and double-checked the scans.

Next is sending silent eyebrow messages to Feuilly. They don't have a captain among them, which means round robin communication any time complications come up that they can't deal with individually. They're all rather good at reading eyebrow wiggles by now. Joly and Bossuet are in direct line of sight of their stranger, so they don't bother – just ping a series of exclamation marks and forward it to everyone. Someone's going to have to remind them that if they're sending messages via the displays anyway, it's probably safe to type out an actual message.

Feuilly nods, and squares himself. Éponine and Grantaire both draw their guns and angle them discreetly at their hips. Éponine looks calm enough, but Grantaire's heart pounds in his chest as he wonders if he just condemned them all by bringing someone onto the ship without checking who they were first.

"What, exactly, are you doing on our ship, Your Highness?" asks Feuilly, at ease even as he levels his gun at Their Imperial Highness, Heir to the Apollon Galaxy, Prince Enjolras.

There's a long pause. "How did you know it was me?" asks the prince eventually, tugging the scarf down from where it covered their face. Grantaire has seen them in the newcasts, obviously, but the videos don't do them justice. Their face seems tiny under the thick lining of the hood, and delicate, with high cheekbones and angular features. Wispy blond curls escape from the hood, even before they push it back to reveal the tell-tale tumble of long hair. No wonder they had kept their hood up and face hidden.

"We did a full biometric scan," says Éponine. "Pulled the info off your registration chip. Ran it through registry databases. Your Highness."

Prince Enjolras frowns. "You shouldn't have access to those."

Grantaire gives them an unimpressed look. "We're criminals," he says. "What're you doing here? If you wanted to get to the relay station, surely you have a private yacht." He pauses for a moment, wonders if he's supposed to tack a title onto the end of what he says, but it's been long enough of a pause that it would be really weird if he added it now.

"I'm not exactly acting in official capacity," says Prince Enjolras, as if they hadn't all guessed.

"Where're you going?" asks Grantaire bluntly.

"I –" Prince Enjolras pauses, looks around at them all. "I'm trying to get to New Andromedae."

Eyebrows raise all around. Feuilly is the one to say it. "New Andromedae is off limits to unknown ships. They're having a bit of a civil war." Or, more specifically, New Andromadae is on the edge of the Alliance airspace and currently torn between separating themselves from the Alliance, and staying in it.

"I know," says Prince Enjolras shortly. "I have friends there. They have a ship, I don't need to get down to the planet itself."

Grantaire drums his fingers. The prince looks – spooked. He supposes he would be too, if he were running away to a rebel planet and got caught before they were even out of orbit. "You're going to get eaten alive," he says.

"What?" Prince Enjolras looks like no one's spoken to them like that before.

"You're going to get eaten alive," says Grantaire again. "You're lucky we're _nice_ criminals. You get onto the relay station and an electronic screwdriver isn't going to fool anyone. There will be real sailors with real guns who will shoot you and not bother with questions. There'll be other hackers who'll run bioscans on you and take you along as a hostage for a ransom or as leverage, or just outright kill you if they hate the Imperial line enough. You have no way to get to where you're going and no idea how to get there."

Prince Enjolras draws themself up, which is a little bit adorable because they could probably reach the tip of Grantaire's eyebrows if they stood on tiptoe. "I –" It sounds like they're about to explain themself to Grantaire for a moment, but then they narrow their eyes. "Then you'll just have to take me there yourselves."

"Well, too bad," says Bossuet, breaking into the tension building between them. "We're not headed in that direction. There's no good business that far out, and we've been taking it easy inner world for too long already. We'll drop you off at the relay station if you want."

The Prince looks taken aback. "What? No, you have to take me there. I'm ordering you to."

"Er," says Feuilly. "I'm sorry, Your Highness, but we're not doing what you say."

" _Criminals_ ," says Grantaire, _again._ It's like the prince doesn't understand that people who are criminals sometimes commit crimes.

"I'll just override your ship and get there myself then," says Enjolras, pulling off one of their gloves to reveal a thick ring set on their middle finger. They set it down on the control panel – everyone stands up in alarm as activation lines spread out from where the ring touches it, and forms the Imperial crest. The Musain starts booting up, ignition roaring to life. The control panel flickers, shows the login screen –

– and shuts down again.

Relief swamps Grantaire's stomach so suddenly it almost feels like nausea.

"What," says Enjolras, and raises his hand to set it down again. This time, nothing happens. "This is the _Imperial seal_. It's a master key to all Alliance ships."

"Ah," says Grantaire. "We're not an Alliance ship."

The prince sends him a withering look. " _All_ ships are Alliance ships."

Éponine snorts, sits down, and kicks her feet up. "Then go ahead, show us what you've got." She's good at covering it, but she's probably hiding her shock that the Musain responded at all – Grantaire knows _his_ heart is still thumping erratically in his chest at the idea of the Musain turning on for someone else.

Enjolras twists the ring around their finger, and tries again. One of the ship's speakers descends until it's next to their ear and plays an obscenely loud noise.

_Hooooooonk._

"Argh!" yells Enjolras. "What was that?!"

"Floreal, probably," says Grantaire.

"It was indeed," says Floreal, her holoav and speech programs flicking into life now she's on the main ship. Her avatar usually takes whatever form it wants, and right now she's a tiger. "You have got another thought coming if you think you can take over the ship, Your Highness."

"Every Alliance ship made in the last millennium should respond to this ring!" says Enjolras, looking somewhat frazzled. Grantaire feels a little bit sorry for them.

"Like I said," says Grantaire. "We're not an Alliance ship. The shell is, but every inch of the Musain has been gutted and redone. And sure, all the parts that we replace are also Alliance made parts, but that's just hardware. The software's our own."

Éponine waves at them, and mimes typing things at her keyboard with wiggled fingers.

"You, you," splutters Enjolras. Seriously. _Adorable_. Perhaps it's Stockholm Syndrome; Grantaire was technically kidnapped, even if it was for all of ten minutes.

"You could pay us," says Bossuet hopefully.

"What?"

"You could pay us. To take you to New Andomedae?"

"But," says Enjolras weakly, "You're criminals."

"Well, you could pay us and get to New Andromedae, or we could strip you of everything you own and _not_ take you to New Andromedae and leave you naked in space," says Joly. He's joking, of course, but the prince doesn't need to know that.

"Right," says Enjolras hastily fumbling about their person. "Will this be enough?" They hold out a credchip, and Grantaire tosses it to tiger Floreal, who swallows it.

"Pre-loaded with five thousand creds," she reports. Grantaire struggles not to let it show on his face. An average worker probably gets paid a full cred for a whole day of work.

"If I ever doubted you were royalty," says Éponine, "My fears have been assuaged. Wow. You have literally no concept of money, do you?"

Enjolras frowns. "It's not enough?"

"It's _fine_ ," says Joly. "We'll take you to New Andromedae. Now you're a client and everything, I suppose we should find you bed quarters or something. Come on, we have a couple of spare bunks." He waves Enjolras out of the bridge, presumably to get them settled in.

"Look at us," says Grantaire, shaking his head sadly. "Doing _honest_ work."

"Not _that_ honest," says Bossuet, grinning with glee, "It'd take us over a year to steal that much normally."

"So," says Éponine, "we're okay with the Crown Prince of the galaxy walking aboard our ship and asking for a lift to New Andromedae? You sure they're not going to turn us in to the Imperial guards?"

"I don't think so. You ran the scan, right? No weapons, just an unconnected commpad." says Bossuet. "We should be fine."

Grantaire snorts. "They're running away. They don't want to be detected. We're good at not being detected."

*

Prince Enjolras turns out to be a remarkably low-key prisoner/guest. They set themself up in one of the extra rooms with no complaints, even though the barracks of the Musain can hardly compare to their rooms in the palace. They're all lucky that there's so few of them they don't have to share rooms; the Musain is supposed to managed by a full crew of ten or fifteen. They only manage because they're all exceptional at what they do – and because they have two AIs on board, even if one is currently mostly hibernating.

When they eat, Grantaire pops down to escort them up to the bridge again. He finds them lying on the bed, hood and scarf pulled free completely, poking despondently through a commpad. Floreal is making sure it's blocked from the Musain's datacom signals, so they can't be contacting anyone, nor will they have the latest news, but that doesn't seem to be what's bugging them; they switch it off and drop it on the bed when Grantaire arrives, and follows him out. "We have a dining hall, technically, but since we all basically live on the bridge, we usually just eat here," says Grantaire. "It's easier."

"About earlier," says Enjolras stiffly. "I didn't mean to – I'm sorry. You don't have to take me to New Andromedae. You said it's out of your way, and I –"

"You paid us, didn't you?" asks Grantaire. "I think you think we're more busy than we actually are. Don't worry about it. We're probably a little less grand than you might have hoped, but – well. We're not an Imperial liner, that's for sure."

"It's fine," says Enjolras. "I knew that when I picked you to follow. As long as you can get me to my friends."

The comms blare when they're halfway through their foodpacks, and Joly pokes at his display. "We're being hailed by an Imperial cruiser," he says, swinging his feet off his dashboard in alarm. "Bossuet –"

"Scanning airspace," says Bossuet immediately, lurching back to his station. "Damn it, it was lurking behind that asteroid, no wonder we didn't pick it up. High metal content."

"Broadcasting," says Joly. "Audio only, let's not give them more than we have to."

" _Hail. You are surrounded. Turn off your engines and prepare to be boarded. Co-operate and release Their Imperial Highness, Prince Enjolras, and you may be granted leniency. If you resist, you will be sentenced to execution._ "

"Release," splutters Enjolras. "I'm not _kidnapped_."

"No," says Grantaire grimly. "You ran away. And we helped you. It's interesting though, how they knew where we were."

Enjolras looks at him, shock giving way to anger. "You think _I_ brought them here?"

" _Hail. You are surrounded. Turn off your engines and prepare_ –"

"Alright, turn it off," says Feuilly, when the message starts to repeat itself, and Joly nods.

"Three more cruisers," reports Bossuet. "Mid-range, top of the line. They really do have us surrounded."

"Let me speak to them," says Enjolras. "I'll tell them I'm not kidnapped. We have codes for this sort of thing."

They exchange uneasy glances, but Enjolras is already striding up into the middle of the bridge, sitting in the middle where the vidcam would capture. It's technically also the Captain's seat, which they leave empty or mostly use for leaving piles of laundry or books when they're feeling lazy, because none of them are the captain and none of them _want_ to be.

"Floreal," says Grantaire quietly, knowing only the AI will pick him up. "Scan Enjolras. We scanned their ID chip, but we didn't run full scans, did we? Check if there's a tracker on them or something."

"I'd have seen if there was," she protests softly, but she does it anyway.

In the meantime, Feuilly turns on the vidcam, and Enjolras draws themself up straighter, tugs their hair loose so it spills across their shoulders, and glares into the vidstream. An Imperial guardsperson looks back at them, visibly relieved to see them looking safe and evidently not tied up or otherwise restrained.

Enjolras barks, "Name and rank."

"Lieutenant François, your Highness." The guard salutes.

"Right," says Enjolras. "I am only going to say this once, so you had better have all the hostage negotiators and palace advisers listening. I am not being kidnapped. This ship is currently escorting me to my destination. Now, piss off." They shut the vidcam off from the captain's seat as Grantaire gapes at them.

"You ' _have codes_ '," says Éponine critically. "Really?"

Enjolras shrugs, an elegant roll of their shoulders. "'Piss off' is my code for telling them I'm safe. No one expects it. That'll keep them off our backs for long enough. They're going to have to get back to the palace advisers and think of a cover-up story to tell everyone at the meetings why I'm not in attendance."

They contemplate that for a moment. "Cruisers are backing off," says Bossuet slowly.

"I'm getting us out of here," says Éponine. "Grantaire, you ready?"

"Let's go for a warp jump as soon as we can," Grantaire says, figuring out which direction they're mostly likely going to be able to escape through first. "As soon as they're far away enough to give us some manoeuvring space, I'm going to take us through."

It's time for Enjolras to see how they manage to stay one step ahead of the Imperial guards. Behind the Musain's battered hull are the finest engines and generators available on the market, fine-tuned by Feuilly. Their steering responds at barely a touch from Grantaire, and their stabilisers and gravity manipulators mean that no one even spills their coffee when Grantaire wrenches them up a full 90 degrees, rockets them straight up between the cruisers and slams them into warp. Smooth, if he says so himself.

"Scans came back," says Floreal, who's now a velociraptor. She stalks up to Enjolras and thrusts her beak in his face. "Your Highness has an extensive network of cybernetics running through them. They're absolute top quality, running along nerves and blood vessels. I'd never have noticed if I weren't looking for them specifically."

"You're a cyborg?" asks Grantaire, flicking the auto-pilot on. He doesn't have to worry too much about steering when they're in warp – Éponine's navigation takes care of that. "Fuck, no wonder they figured out where you are, you've probably got some tracking program embedded in you."

"No, no," says Enjolras as they braid their hair back up. "Just symbiotic cybernetics. All the Imperial family have them. They're fed into our bodies when we're foetuses, and they grow with us."

Éponine squints. "Sounds like a picky sort of difference to me."

"I can still do everything I can do now if you shut down the cybernetics. It's enhancements and tweaks. Mostly brain processing speed, metabolism, antibodies, that sort of thing."

Grantaire raises an eyebrow. "This isn't public knowledge. Are you telling us state secrets? Is this the sort of thing we'll be arrested and thrown to pools of octopus piranhas for knowing?"

"There's no point denying it given you've already figured it out," says Enjolras, twisting their hair round and round until it's a bundle on the back of their head. "I have a dataport on the back of my neck. Can you see if there is a tracking program? I don't recall it being used for anything other than routine maintenance, but you're right. I don't trust the Imperial doctors not to have snuck a tracking program into me."

Grantaire stands, and slides his hands under the mass of hair until he feels the light slit of a dataport under the pads of his fingers. "Standard size dataport. I could take a look, but this sort of programming is really not my thing. Éponine?"

"I don't deal with software that goes _in_ people," she says. "I wish Bahorel was here."

"Then why don't we take care of that first?" asks Feuilly. "It's been almost a day since he should have checked in. He might need rescuing. It's not on the way to New Andromedae, but maybe that's better. You'll look like you're going in one direction, we cut the signal off, turn around and head to New Andromedae."

"Who's Bahorel?" asks Enjolras.

Éponine nods, and adjusts their navigation. "Our last member. He was supposed to meet up with us after what he was doing, but hasn't, and while Bahorel's normally very good at getting out of his own situations, I fear our AI might take over the ship and forcibly take us to him if we don't do anything about it."

Enjolras looks over at Floreal, lounging across the entire back of the bridge.

"Not _me_ ," she says. "I'd have never waited this long before going to get him if he was _my_ beau."

"You have another AI?" asks Enjolras, looking around.

Grantaire blinks. "Of course. You saw the other longboat when we pulled in, didn't you? She doesn't come out when she's too pissed off at the rest of us."

Enjolras looks like he's putting a few things together. "Ah, I see. What's her name?"

Feuilly shrugs. "Whatever she feels like. Mostly, she's just _her_. Anyway, it wouldn't hurt to detour, trade in for a couple of those parts Éponine wanted and maybe restock on foodpacks while we're at it since we didn't stop at the relay station."

"Rerouted," reports Éponine, and Grantaire double-checks the stream; it wouldn't do to change their course in warp and crash into some other ship.

Bahorel is on Theta Five, which started out as an asteroid satellite, but it's become a thriving artificial planet in the last fifty years, even if everything is underground due to the lack of atmosphere. Grantaire's been a few times. He likes it there; it's grand and expansive and eager to try out all sorts of new scientific inventions, which is exactly why Bahorel is there.

It takes just over a week to get to Theta Five, and everyone spends it on edge, wary that another Imperial cruiser is going creep up on them. Éponine has taken a look at the programming on Enjolras's cybernetics but eventually decides to leave them be, unsure whether she can isolate the tracking program without affecting the rest of their functions.

Grantaire still escorts Enjolras from bridge to their rooms and back again, and Floreal still blocks his commpad from linking up to their telecom systems, and Enjolras is getting visibly more unsettled about it.

"You'll get used to it," says Grantaire one day, leaning against the open doorway as he escorts Enjolras back to their room.

"Get used to what?" Enjolras has their commpad pulled out already, though it hasn't updated since they stepped on the Musain, and their hand wavers in the air. When they set it down, Grantaire takes that as an invitation to carry on talking.

"Being on the run."

Enjolras smiles. They do that a lot, Grantaire's noticed – like it's a reaction to smile first, then process a real reaction later. "I suppose you would know all about it."

"We do," says Grantaire, and gestures at the inside of the room. When Enjolras nods, he walks in, drapes himself backwards on the only chair, and folds his arms over the chair back. "It doesn't have to be so... grim."

"Grim?"

Grantaire shrugs. "You're not our prisoner. You're paying us a lot of money to get you where you want to go. We're being safe, so you can't contact anyone, but that doesn't mean you have to just sit in here, by yourself, when we're not eating."

Enjolras pauses. "It's not – I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that I don't enjoy your company. I just have a lot to work on. It would be easier if I had access to datacoms, of course, but – well. I didn't just run away for the sake of it."

"You're trying to get to New Andromedae," says Grantaire. "I think it's pretty clear what sort of things you're trying to work on."

Enjolras smiles, and it's softer, most hesitant this time. Grantaire reckons that's what their real smile looks like. The other one is just too cheerful. "Pretty obvious, huh?"

"If you let us know what sort of stuff you want downloaded off the datacoms, we can do that for you," says Grantaire. "And, you know, there are a couple of spare stations in the bridge. You can do your work there if you want to."

Enjolras is watching him carefully, as if staring at him for longer will make Grantaire want to spill all his secrets. It's a pretty good look. He's about half a minute from spilling his entire life story. "Thank you," says Enjolras. "I'll think about it. Maybe next time?"

Grantaire half expects that to be the end of that, but instead Enjolras sticks around after their next meal. "If you think it's safe to get me this, that would be helpful," says Enjolras, and hesitates before unfolding a list from an inner pocket and handing it over.

Skimming the list, Grantaire nods. "Should be easy enough. Do you want to take the weapons station? Feuilly might take it over if we ever actually fire the weapons, but we usually try not to take it to that point."

Enjolras slots themself in at the empty station and while they're obviously trying to tuck themself away, Grantaire's friends are too much of a sociable lot, and Enjolras finds themself folded into the group before long. They get roped into giving an opinion on an argument about two of the most famous singers in the galaxy, and admits that one of them attempted to climb in through their bedroom window after a performance at the palace; Feuilly presses some parts that need testing and oiling into their hands and soon enough they have grease on their clothes and hands, and a streak of it across one cheek.

Grantaire pulls up all the relevant information that Enjolras asked for, and when he hands over a memchip, Enjolras takes a moment to blink at him, as if they'd been enjoying themselves so much they had actually forgotten about it. Grantaire grins.

Of course. There are some differences in opinion.

"No, absolutely not," says Grantaire. "You are one of the most recognisable public figures in the galaxy, you can't just parade yourself around."

"I'll wear my disguise again," says Enjolras, and Grantaire groans.

"That's _worse_. That thing just screams 'I am up to no good'."

"Then I'll put together a different disguise, unless you have a better suggestion," snaps Enjolras, and stalks out. Grantaire sighs. He's seen the way Enjolras has been staring out at the artificial planet, obviously a little spacesick after so long. He doesn't say that his best suggestion is for Enjolras to not go on-planet at all and stay on the Musain since it's the safest place Grantaire knows. They're not technically their prisoner after all, but they can't help them when Enjolras is the least clued up person in existence about personal safety.

He doesn't see Enjolras again until they're close enough to get into the longboats and enter the atmosphere.

Enjolras is one of the last ones there when they're getting ready to board the longboats, flanked by Joly as they jog towards everyone else, their trademark hair sheared off until it curls in little tufts around his head, even if it's still long enough to hide the little dataport. Grantaire stares in shock.

"Do you like it?" they ask, tousling their hair self-consciously. "I don't remember it ever being this short."

"Huh," says Éponine. "You look... less ponce-y."

"That's a compliment," says Grantaire, before Enjolras can ask. "Where did you get the clothes?" They match the rest of their group's, neutral-coloured shirt and snug trousers with padded knees. They're a bit long around the ankle, but Enjolras has them rolled up and they're shrugging into a battered coat that's more multiple pockets sewn together than actual coat. They even have a holster with a single gun hanging off it, and while their boots are still a bit shinier than any of theirs would be, it's not half bad.

"They're mine," says Joly. "I figured they'd fit into my stuff the best. They're one of us now, at least on the outside. Grantaire, you're on prince herding duty."

"Erm," says Grantaire at the same time as Enjolras says, "Prince herding duty?"

"Make sure they don't get lynched, call the Imperial guards on us, hand anyone credchips with five thousand creds on... That sort of thing."

"Ah," says Grantaire. "Yeah. In fact, you should probably leave the rest of your credchips in here." He digs around in his pocket for a couple of his, old and battered and having been passed through thousands of hands. "Try these instead. They should have two or three creds on each, which should be plenty for anything you want to buy here."

"Two or three?" asks Enjolras, staring at them in bewilderment. "But I gave you five _thousand_ for –"

"Yes, yes," says Grantaire, and bustles them all on board, where the dashboard reads: ROSALIE in neat letters. "I mean. Welcome to our other longboat! She's apparently called Rosalie today."

*

Bahorel is a grinning young cyborg currently missing half a mechanical leg. This is... more common of an occurrence than Grantaire would like to admit.

"That would explain why you had trouble getting yourself out," says Joly, and sighs.

"Is _she_ here?" asks Bahorel, seemingly ignoring him.

"Of course, says Grantaire indignantly. "Like she'd let us come down here without her." In fact, he's already dropped the little holoav projector underneath his chair, where she'll take care of herself and assist in the break-out after they slink back out.

"This is going to be hard," says Feuilly in a low voice. "I brought the usual tools, but I didn't think to bring an entire leg."

Bahorel shakes his head. "I'll be fine. I've got a substitute planned. Usual plan, no deviations necessary."

"If you're sure," says Joly. They wave at him, and head back out.

They head back to the restaurant, where Enjolras is still sitting where they left him with a novel and a new stungun, deciding that it would be too high risk to bring them to a monitored prison, even if it was a low-security one. Éponine joins them a while later, laden down with new parts and foodpacks. They take the chance to order some real planet-made food whilst they can, and wait. It's about three hours later when Bahorel limps up to them, a metal chair leg strapped down to extend where the mass of wires dangle from his broken leg and the holoav clutched in his hand.

"Really," says Joly in disbelief. "That's your idea? A chair leg?"

Bahorel shrugs. "Prisoners aren't banned from having chairs. Come on, let's go."

"What –" Enjolras starts to ask, but there's no time for that; people are likely to discover Bahorel's missing and come after them at any moment now. They rise as one, and duck down back towards the longboat.

When they get inside, Rosalie starts herself up, running through the start-up checks, and takes off; the only one not prepared is Enjolras, who staggers when they lift off. That's probably testament as to how used they are to flying off with short notice.

"Hey baby, I missed you," croons Bahorel, sliding into the pilot's seat and caressing the control panels.

"If you stopped getting yourself caught, I wouldn't have to come and break you out all the time," says Rosalie suddenly, her holoav zapping into life from the little box. She drops effortlessly into the co-pilot's seat and they cackle fondly at each other.

"You pair of danger addicts," says Joly sadly. "Absolutely mad." Rosalie snorts; a side panel springs open, and smacks Joly in the side.

*

Joly might be their resident doctor, but that's only for the squishy human bits of them. Bahorel sits with his knee propped up as Feuilly welds a spare leg onto him, and proudly shows off the goods he had gone to such trouble to steal. "It's the latest coding for the Alliance gravity manipulators," he says, plugging himself in to the Musain and uploading the information. Unlike Enjolras, his dataport is in his little finger, and has its own wire extensions. "They took the memchip off me, but I guess they didn't realise that I'd already got a copy onto my systems."

"That's classified information," says Enjolras, eyes wide. "There's top, state of the art, electronic security surrounding that coding. I _know,_ I've tried to get at it myself."

"Yeah," says Grantaire. "We're –"

"Criminals," says Enjolras impatiently. "Yes, yes, I know. But _no one_ should be able to crack that coding. Not unless you're professionals, or, or –"

"We _are_ professionals," says Éponine indignantly. "We're some of the best goddamn space pirates this side of Alliance space."

"You're pirates?" Enjolras looks flabbergasted. "You're the _best_ – No. You, you, you're –"

"Criminals," says Grantaire, and snorts. "Yes, I believe we've been over this. Welcome to the good ship Musain."

"Oh, stars above." Enjolras sinks down into his seat; everyone looks at them, a bit bemused. It's not like he hasn't known what they are all along. Enjolras laughs shakily. "You don't understand. I didn't think you were _infamous_. I thought you were just – common thieves. I picked you because you looked so... unassuming."

"Thanks," says Grantaire dryly.

Enjolras shakes their head. "If the Imperial fleet get too suspicious, they're going to come after you with the full force of the Alliance. You all have bounties on your heads!"

"Mine's the biggest," says Éponine proudly.

Grantaire scowls at her. "You had a head start. You started young."

Enjolras still looks vaguely stricken though. "And Grantaire – I _kidnapped_ you using a screwdriver. You can't be a deadly pirate."

"Shush," says Grantaire. "Let's not talk about that. Are you seriously this shocked that we're actually competent at what we do?"

"Yes," admits Enjolras.

"You're adorable," says Joly, very seriously. "Bahorel, do you think you could take a look at Enjolras?"

"Don't call me that," says Enjolras, in a beleaguered tone.

"Right," says Bahorel. "I'm looking. Er. I like what I see? I mean, he's a bit short, but that's just a matter of angles –"

"Ahem," says Joly. "At their _programming_. They have, what did you call it? Cybernetics. We think there might be a tracking program uploaded."

"Oh," says Bahorel. "You're a fake cyborg! Yeah, I can do that. But honestly, it might be easier just to shut all your cybernetics down, and then try and isolate it afterwards."

"I'm not a fake – Wait, can you do that?" asks Enjolras. "That would be ideal."

"Sure," says Bahorel with a shrug. He rummages around under his station for a moment, pulls out a cyborg taser, and shoves it into Enjolras's neck; they crumple to the floor before they can even yell.

"Bahorel," says Grantaire finally, as they all stare at Enjolras, who's in a splayed, unconscious puddle in the middle of the bridge, "you're aware that's the Imperial Prince? The heir to the throne of Apollon Galaxy?"

"Huh," says Bahorel. "Oops."

"So, how did you lose the leg in a server room?" Bahorel is their resident muscle, and it's not like the rest of them are bad at fighting. It takes a lot to make Bahorel stay down.

Bahorel makes a face. "Ah. Well. Remember how we got the tip off from Claquesous?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, he was kind of lying in wait for me to steal it and then hoping he could steal it off me."

Grantaire raises an eyebrow. Claquesous is two metres of beanpole and greasy charm. There's literally no way that he would win in a fair fight. Of course, it's Claquesous, so he doesn't actually fight fair. "Electronic jammer?"

"Yep," sighs Bahorel. "So since my leg wasn't working anyway, I pulled it off and whacked him around the head with it."

There is a long pause.

"You tore your leg off and used it to clonk Claquesous over the head," says Bossuet, as if rephrasing it will clarify what happened.

"Yeah, and then I could get at the electronic jammer and turn it off, but of course by then, I only had one leg to try and get out of there with anyway," says Bahorel sheepishly.

"You are so grounded," says Rosalie. "Seriously, you can't take  _one_ lousy mission without me backing you up? You great dunderhead. Grounded. For life."

When Enjolras eventually wakes up again – they had at least thought to put them on a reclining chair – they're unpacking the stuff Bahorel had stolen, admiring the sleek, shiny new code.

"I've had the auction lined up for _days_ ," says Joly gleefully, stroking his fingers down his display. "It's time to make a serious profit."

Enjolras wheezes at them, flinging off the blanket Grantaire had tossed over them. "You're _selling_ the coding?" Grantaire doesn't think it's the best time to tell them that they're not actually planning to sell it, just pretend to hold the auction and then have Éponine, Bahorel, Floreal and Rosalie wage electronic warfare and steal the money all the interested parties are putting up as bids. Enjolras gets up and sways as they do, passes a hand over their eyes, and frowns.

Joly stands, and pushes them back down. "Your cybernetics are still offline," says Joly. "You might feel differently, since your body is obviously very used to functioning with them. You might get headaches or stomach cramps, or feel like you're moving very slowly or any of a dozen side-effects actually. Bahorel took a look at all your systems, but I assume a lot of them are personalised for the Imperial family only, so we've never seen them before."

Enjolras nods jerkily. "It feels - strange."

"But hey," says Grantaire. "Congratulations. You're free! Tracking program's gone."

Looking up at him, Enjolras blinks twice, as if it's taking a moment for their brain to adjust, work out what it just heard. They sit up straighter. A smile spreads across their face slowly, wider than Grantaire has seen, until dimples appear. "Yes, I am."


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm bored," Éponine announces. "Can we  _please_ rob someone?"

Feuilly makes a face at her. "We're being paid a small fortune to escort Their Imperial Highness to New Andromedea. We can't just take a side trip to go do some pirating."

Éponine snorts. "' _We're being paid_.' Please. You lot are too nice. We could have just taken the rest of their credchips and then dumped the naïve little shit on an asteroid somewhere."

"I'm right here," says Enjolras, amused despite themself. Éponine has never bothered to treat them as anything more than another person, which has been much appreciated. "And please stop using the title, Feuilly. Just Enjolras is fine. I don't mind if you do some pirating on the way."

"See? We have Their Imperial permission," says Éponine, and smiles sweetly at Enjolras. "Seriously. If I don't get to shoot someone soon, I'm going to start shooting you lot."

"We are coming up to the Chariot's Path," says Bossuet hopefully.

"What's the Chariot's Path?" asks Enjolras. They vaguely remember it from a geography lesson, or something mentioned off-hand a number of years ago. They don't remember having paid much attention to it.

Grantaire raises an eyebrow. "You've never taken a lover off to the Chariot's Path for a romantic dinner?"

"I," says Enjolras, and flushes without meaning to. "No. I haven't." Enjolras stares resolutely at the images that Éponine is pulling up for them now, and pretend that they can't see Grantaire scrutinising them from their peripheral vision.

"You've never had a lover," says Grantaire quietly, and then looks surprised, almost as if he didn't mean to say that out loud.

Enjolras flinches, and then scowls at themself. That overreaction alone probably told Grantaire more than anything else. "I've always known that my hand would be given in political alliance," they say stiffly instead. It's true, even if that's not exactly the reason why.

"So, no romantic trysts under the rainbow stars of Phoebus for you then," says Bossuet. "Explains why we've never poached your ship."

" _Poached_?" asks Enjolras.

Grantaire grins. "You're in for a treat."

*

It turns out that the Chariot's Path is a tourist spot, especially alluring for romantic partners. Grantaire hands Enjolras some data on it, uploaded onto their commpad without them having to ask for it. It's a clear stretch of space with no asteroids or debris which makes it perfect for pirating, since they can drop out of warp right on top of an unsuspecting cruise ship, and sail away again as soon as they're done.

It also has a clear view of Phoebus, an enormous planet in the Apollon galaxy that has a swirling, milky atmosphere. The meteoroids that fall across it cause a shower of multicoloured explosions, extravagant and mesmerising. There should be a row of cruise liners and smaller, private yachts just parked there for hours so the guests can watch them.

Éponine and Grantaire spend almost an hour carefully plotting out exact coordinates so they won't crash into anyone when they pull out of warp, and the rest of the them polish their weapons. The lazy, carefree attitude of the Musain Enjolras has experienced for the last few weeks evaporates, taken over by a fizzle of excitement and tension in the air.

"Are you boarding?" asks Bahorel.

"Me?" asks Enjolras, blinking. "I'm not a pirate. I wouldn't even know what to do."

"Everyone has a first time," says Bossuet, and tosses them a spare gun in a holster. "And we all know you Imperial kids have military training."

Enjolras doesn't like to talk about it – but Bossuet's right. Marksmanship is one of Enjolras's strong suits. They examine the gun carefully. It's a little big for their hands, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. The setting's already turned down to 'stun'. "Do you... hurt people a lot?"

Joly snorts. "Not if we can help it. Mostly it's for the spectacle. Rich people are weird. They really like it if we look the part when we attack them." He's digging through a pile of clothes, which turns out to be huge, draping trenchcoats and antiquated, plumed hats for them all.

"Really?" asks Enjolras. "Really?"

"Rich people are weird," repeats Joly, and holds one up critically before assuming that it'll fit Enjolras, and dumping it into their lap.

"They're more co-operative if we look the part," explains Feuilly. "We wouldn't bother if we were doing a cargo attack, but these ships are full of rich, bored people. You probably know a lot of them. We don't want to actually hurt them, we just want their stuff. If they feel like they're being entertained, they're more likely to give things up without an actual fight."

Enjolras thinks about it. "You're right. Rich people are weird."

"Dropping out of warp in five," says Grantaire. "Four. Three. Two. One. Bahorel, _go_."

Bahorel, already plugged into the Musain's mainframe, launches electronic warfare the moment they drop into regular space, attempting to hack in and control their target's systems remotely. They've chosen a small private yacht, barely bigger than the Musain itself, and Enjolras looks out of the window in fascination as the target's lights flicker as Bahorel battles with its computers.

"Weapons down," says Bahorel, and Grantaire swings them out in front, the easiest place to dock but also the most dangerous if the ship still has working canons. "Defences are ours. Automated systems. Alarms are off. Locks. Docking. Lights. Alright. We're in."

Grantaire brings them down so smoothly that Enjolras barely feels the Musain's belly scrape across the top of the yacht as they lock over one of the smaller docking systems. Grantaire turns them around, their last move before they board so that they're facing the right direction to get the hell out of there the moment they're done, and the falling stars of Phoebus finally come into view. Enjolras gasps.

They're not really stars, of course, but incandescent blurs of colour rain down towards the planet, leaving streaks of light imprinted in Enjolras's vision until they're not sure what's real and what's an afterimage.

"Enjolras, come on," says Grantaire, and Enjolras moves reluctantly, blinking ribbons of colour and light away. They scurry to the Musain's drop hatch, plopping directly down into the maintenance corridor.

The lights are off, courtesy of Bahorel, and whilst the warning lights are on, flooding the corridor with blinking flares of red, the alarms themselves are muted. "Where is everyone?" asks Enjolras.

"We block off certain doors," says Bossuet proudly. "Everyone gets funnelled into the main deck, apart from the pilots, who're locked into the flight deck. We'll see you later." Joly, Bossuet and Feuilly peel off; they're going to do quick raids of the living suites for valuables with the AIs, Floreal and Emilie today, helping to crack any room safes.

"And what are we doing?" asks Enjolras as they set off at a jog, though they have a sinking feeling based on the fact that they're heading up to the front of the ship.

"Pirating," says Éponine with a grin. She pulls out a holosword with perfect dramatic timing.

Bahorel, who's tracking their progress from on board the Musain, unlocks the doors for them and sends a ringing round of static blaring through the ship's tannoy speakers. "May I have your attention please. Tonight, the ship has an _extra_ special treat for you!" He sounds so much like one of those commchannel advertisements that Enjolras winces. "Tonight, you will be entertained by the crew of none other than... the dread ship Musain!"

"Dread ship?" whispers Enjolras.

"Never hurts to big ourselves up in rumours," says Grantaire, pulling his holosword out too.

Enjolras points at the weapon. "Should I have one too?"

"Nah, there's something else for you." Grantaire hands an enormous bag to Enjolras, and grins. "You get to collect the loot."

The door slides open with a hiss, revealing them standing in silhouette to the guests on board; a nervous murmur filters out of the deck to Enjolras's ears, which is hilarious because there are about twenty people in there, and only thee of them. Bahorel continues. "We ask that you remain calm, and to form an orderly queue to hand your valuables over as quickly and quietly as you can. Thank you for your time! And your valuables."

Grantaire and Éponine step forward, the light of their holoswords illuminating the way, and Enjolras moves in almost unseen behind them. Grantaire was right – Enjolras _does_ recognise a few faces here. They tug their hat further down over their head, and follow. To their surprise, the people really _are_ lining up to carefully drop in their belongings – necklaces, rings, earrings, wallets and credchips – with no sign of resistance.

From somewhere behind them, Enjolras hears a hushed, "My, how _exciting_. Pirates from the _Musain_! This'll make a fabulous story for the children."

Enjolras winces.

"Your ring too, sir," says Grantaire, perfectly reasonably, and a young gentleman bristles in front of him.

"I think _not_. This has been in the family for generations. This is _Earth gold_."

"Earth gold, or a neat little phaser hole right between your eyes?" asks Grantaire, pulling his gun out. The _guests_ don't have to know that they're all set to stun.

The man draws himself up. Enjolras vaguely remembers him from a charity dinner somewhere – he's the son of an ambassador or something – Helios, perhaps. "I'm not bending to you. I'm related to the Imperial line _._ I've served in the Imperial _Army_ , I've fought _wars_."

Since there hasn't been an officially declared war in the last twenty years, Enjolras doubts it. Also, there are no relations to the Imperial family, which is another lie. And yet – the man picks up the gilded cane he's holding, and unscrews the handle to reveal a holosword of his own. Grantaire laughs, and flourishes his own. A space magically opens up around them.

"Crap," Enjolras mutters. "Trouble."

Éponine snorts, and shakes her head. "Nah. He might not be military trained, but Grantaire knows what he's doing. Let's carry on." She doesn't even bother to watch, just turns her back, and gestures to the next person. The woman hurries to drop off some emerald earrings into their bag, and then elbows someone out of the way so she has a better view of the showdown going on.

Yeah. Rich people are weird.

Enjolras recognises military training when he sees it. The guy challenging Grantaire looks so on form that Enjolras could probably have used him as an illustration for The Book. Grantaire, on the other hand – Enjolras is half afraid he's going to slice his own hand off.

The holoswords flash in the dim light, occasionally revealing the faces of those who wield them, one face scowling and grim and one face alight with mad delight. They clash, producing bursts of static that make Enjolras wince every so often. The crowd around them murmur and shift like an amorphous mass, making way when the fighters get to close, and clustering in when they get too far, and Enjolras finds himself sucked into the atmosphere despite himself, a thrill dancing up his spine when Grantaire gets the upper hand.

Grantaire has the height and strength advantage, but he fights like someone smaller, lighter than himself. Like a sneak thief who learnt in the gutters of the planet, Enjolras realises. He darts in when he sees an advantage and shores up his defences as he waits, and it feels like a dance in the dark.

Enjolras is just collecting the last of the valuables – they keep getting distracted by the fight, like everyone else – when the fighters move towards them, parrying back and forth as their holoswords move so quickly, the sizzle of the air can be heard. They surge towards Enjolras, Grantaire on a roll, and Enjolras doesn't notice them quickly enough: they get too close.

The heat of the holoswords flares against their face and one of them – Enjolras can't tell which one belongs to whom right now – thrusts up against their hat, searing a long, dark burn against the material and pushing it off their head. Enjolras stumbles back.

"Whoops," says Grantaire, rearing out of the darkness into Enjolras's line of sight, grinning at them and catching the hat. His opponent's sword dashes towards them, slicing neatly through one of Grantaire's sleeves, but not far enough to hit his arm and Grantaire parries it away, tossing the hat back to a bemused Enjolras.

"You done?" asks Éponine, as Enjolras hefts the sack.

Enjolras pushes the hat back on. "Yes, that's everyone."

"Great." She raises her voice. "Time to get going, R."

"You're ruining my fun," calls back Grantaire, but he does tuck his sword away; his opponent hesitates, thrown off, and in that moment Grantaire pulls out his gun, and shoots the guy. He flops over like a wet fish, people jumping out of the way in alarm as the holosword-cane rolls across the floor, sizzling bootstraps and dress hems in the way. Grantaire leans down and plucks the ring from his hand, and drops it into the bag with the rest of the loot.

"Toodles!" Grantaire says cheerfully, and blows kisses as they tumble back down the corridor, towards the Musain, Bahorel closing the door behind them when they leave.

"You really enjoy this," says Enjolras, smile twitching across their face despite themself.

"I really do." Grantaire grins, giddy with adrenaline, and throws a friendly arm around Enjolras's shoulder. The bag pulled over Enjolras's shoulder clanks with the weight of stolen valuables and Grantaire is hot and flushes, hair damp with sweat from his exertion. His heavy breaths are hot against Enjolras's neck and his eyes blown wide. Enjolras darts their tongue out to wet their lip involuntarily; Grantaire leans in, and –

"We're done, let's get out of here," yells Joly as he and Bossuet come running down the corridor towards them.

Grantaire turns to wave at them and Enjolras's heart thumps in his chest so loudly it thuds out of his eardrums. He's glad the corridor's still dark. Grantaire peels himself off Enjolras's shoulders, and Enjolras shivers.

"I'll give you a boost up to the hatch," says Grantaire, in a tone all wrong for such a neutral sentence, and Enjolras nods wordlessly.

*

It's been three weeks since Enjolras's cybernetics have been offline. Bahorel's isolated the tracking program and offered to turn the rest of it back on, but Enjolras reckons if they're trying to distance themself from the Imperial family, they should do without its privileges too. Everything feels slow these days, both physically and mentally, and keeping on top of a conversation takes effort that it never used to.

On the other hand, knowing that the Emperor and the Imperial fleet isn't breathing over their shoulder is a weight lifted. In the last two weeks, Enjolras has seen more of space than they have in their entire lifetime. "Cosette would love this," they say wistfully when the Musain passes through a planetary system where all the planets are gaseous. Grantaire skims them across the surfaces, billowing coloured gases in their wake and Enjolras spends hours with their face peering out the windows.

"You'll just have to show them after you're done," says Grantaire, and Enjolras shoots him a sidelong look. The crew of the Musain have probably guessed what Enjolras's intentions for heading to New Andromedae are, but none of them have ever brought it up explicitly.

"Maybe I will," they say, and go back to pressing their face against the window.

"You need to see this," says Joly suddenly, and tosses the newscast he's been watching from his small screen up to the main bridge screen.

" _– has been stripped of their title and right to inherit the Apollon Galaxy after the death of our esteemed Emperor. The honour of heir and title of Crown Prince has fallen to their Imperial Highness, the Prince Cosette._

 _"It is suspected that the former Prince Enjolras has Separatist sentiments, and has been linked with several rebel groups. As such, there is now an official warrant and bounty for their arrest and safe delivery to Imperial guards._ "

There's a picture of Enjolras and it must be from that time they hit the yacht, because their hair is short and unevenly curling, like it doesn't know what to do without all that weight holding it down. The lighting is bad, with red overtones – the blaring alarms, no doubt – and the expression on the face is shocked, eyes wide and mouth partially open, a ridiculous plumed hat falling backwards off their head. Enjolras should have known that someone there would have been taping the swordfight, to be uploaded onto the streams as fast as humanly possible.

Without the facial recognition software, it might have been someone else. But another picture blows up alongside it – an officially commissioned one, no doubt, since it still features them with hair spilling down to their waist, in an Imperial uniform, and the overlay doesn't tell lies.

A bounty amount scrolls along the bottom of the screen. It's an impressive amount.

Enjolras stares, unable to take his eyes off the screen even when it moves onto other news. Any relief, any enjoyment he's been slowly allowing himself in the last few days vanishes.

"Urgh," says Grantaire lightly. "You're outlawed for like _two seconds_ and you already have a higher bounty than me." Enjolras turns to stare at him, time slowing down for him like he's trying to move through a high-gravity simulation; it takes him almost half a minute to process what Grantaire says.

"Imperial prince," says Bossuet, raising one hand as if weighing his options, "Piss annoying space pirate," he says, raising the other hand. "Not really a choice, is it?"

"It's not like I _wanted_ to inherit the galaxy," says Enjolras, and laughs shrilly before they can stop themself. It's almost funny that they've been disowned for treason – they haven't even told anyone on board the Musain their reason for running away, which really would be grounds for treason. They rub at their eyes, and unfallen tears streak across their fingers.

"I'm – upset. Why am I upset?" asks Enjolras in surprise.

The crew exchange looks with each other. "Because they're family," says Joly.

Enjolras blinks at him, uncomprehending. That's not entirely what they are. They're the Imperial line. A legacy. No one ever talks about them like they're a real family.

Joly reaches under his station to pull out a bottle of clear liquid. He pours them all a generous amount of alcohol, and hands one to Enjolras first. "It'd be nice to think that family wouldn't shell out a small fortune to have you publicly executed for treason."

Enjolras smiles faintly, because if there is anything they know how to do, it is smile for the occasion. They haven't had common alcohol since university – the mere smell of it penetrates through the fog clouding their brain over at the moment and they grimace as they take their shot. It burns and he splutters, and perhaps they can pretend that the tears welling at the corner of their eyes are from whatever concoction of engine fuel they're drinking.

*

Grantaire finds them, after Enjolras excused themself to their room. It's not until Grantaire knocks on the door and Enjolras looks up to see him silhouetted in the doorway that Enjolras realises that they've just been sat in the dark, staring out of the tiny porthole window at nothing. They're more drunk than they'd thought they'd be on just a few drinks, probably because there are no tiny little nanobots speeding up their metabolism now.

"Sorry," Enjolras says blankly. "Did you want something?"

They feel more than see Grantaire sit down on the bunk next to them, his weight making the mattress dip Enjolras towards him. "No," says Grantaire. "Just wanted to make sure you're all right."

"I'm – I'm fine," says Enjolras, and it's a bad sign when they can't even produce that lie properly.

"Do you need to talk to someone? Because I know we've kept you off the communication channels, because – well, you know. In case you were going to bring Imperial guards down on us which I assume isn't going to happen now. But we talked about it. We can link you up? Get you in contact with your friends?"

Enjolras stares at him. It's been _so long_ since they could just call Combeferre or Courfeyrac whenever they wanted that he hadn't thought of a simple vidcall. They miss them, so so much, like a hole in their heart that they've just learned to walk around instead of confront and that's been the case for so long that they hadn't even realised. "I – thank you. Yes, please." Enjolras swallows. "But maybe not – right now. Don't want them to see me like this, you know." They think back to the last time they'd called, weeks ago now, in a panic and about to leave the palace. A lot of things have changed since then.

"I'll ask Floreal to stop blocking your access," says Grantaire, and Enjolras nods their thanks. Grantaire turns to give them some peace.

"Wait," blurts out Enjolras. They find themself reaching out to Grantaire, but Enjolras doesn't remember moving their arm. "Can you – stay? I – it's selfish, I know. Sorry."

Grantaire walks back in and shuts the door behind them, turns on the small light over Enjolras's bunk instead of the brighter room light, and sits down gingerly on the bunk next to Enjolras. "Of course I can," he says, and places a hand comfortingly over one of Enjolras's own. After Enjolras blinks to clear their eyes, they find Grantaire smiling hesitantly. Grantaire is not like them. Grantaire doesn't smile when he doesn't mean it.

"I don't want to be alone anymore," says Enjolras numbly, and they're not sure whether they mean right now, or in general. Enjolras wants to tell them, the crew of the Musain, what they're going to do. They close their eyes wearily, the alcohol making everything a bit woozy, and when they reopen them, they're tucked in against Grantaire's side in a hug. It feels good. Grantaire is warm and his arm is strong and Enjolras hasn't been hugged like this since he lived with Courfeyrac.

"I'm going to destroy their power base," says Enjolras quietly. "The whole lot of them. There isn't going to be an Imperial line after I'm done."

Grantaire freezes. "You're drunk," he says slowly. "You should sleep it off."

"I," says Enjolras, and then huffs. Grantaire has no way of knowing what they're saying just because they're drunk. Enjolras is going to have to wait until afterwards to let him know. "Maybe. You'll stay?"

"I'll stay," confirms Grantaire.

They end up on the bed, Grantaire leaning against the wall and Enjolras curled up against him as sleep tugs at the edges of their awareness until they drop off.

When they wake up again, Grantaire is gone. Not long gone, judging by the warm patch on the bed that Enjolras is still huddled around, but there's some green rehydration drink on the table, a pill and a note, which reads _For the hangover._ Oh. That's what that ghastly pounding around the temples is. Enjolras kind of wishes they had their metabolism cybernetics back, if that's what drinking feels like for everyone else.

They swallow the pill and gulp down the drink, and it's testament as to how bleary they feel that Enjolras doesn't notice their datapad, screen on and glowing, until it pings. Enjolras had almost forgotten what that sound was.

Enjolras grabs it and looks at the screen. 74 unread messages. 40 missed calls, 28 of which have vidmessages left. An emotion Enjolras can't quite name swells up in their chest as they click their comms system open to see most of them from Combeferre and Courfeyrac, and another dozen from Jehan, their ship's AI. There are even a few from Marius, thought that no doubt means that they're actually from Cosette.

The messages bridge the entire length of time Enjolras has been on board the Musain, and Enjolras almost laughs hysterically because they start out jovial and get increasingly worried, until Courfeyrac's last eight messages, all sent yesterday. Seven of them read 'WHERE ARE YOU I'M GOING TO KILL YOU WHEN YOU GET HERE', and the last just says 'Unless you're actually dead, in which case I will be very sad. :('

'I'm safe', they hurriedly type back. 'There were complications and I haven't had any stream access since I left the palace. I'm with a group of pirates and we're headed to your location. Everything's going quite well, considering.'

Enjolras opens Cosette and Marius's messages next. They're more careful, cautious not give away details in case someone finds the messages, but for anyone who knows Cosette, they hold a similar tone. They want Enjolras to be safe, to watch out for Imperial guards and bounty hunters, and Enjolras can only tell them that they're with people who are experts at avoiding both.

They've only barely managed to send that message before there's an incoming call flashing across the screen. Enjolras sees Combeferre's holoav blink up at him, and accepts it.

"ENJOLRAS," screams Courfeyrac. "DO YOU KNOW HOW WORRIED COMBEFERRE WAS? DO YOU? HOW DARE YOU. Oooooh, you cut your hair!"

The last remnants of hangover throbs, but Enjolras grins back at him anyway. "Only Combeferre was worried?"

"Of course," says Courfeyrac, glowering. " _I_ would never waste my time worrying about anyone who told us that they were running away from the Imperial Palace with no notice and then didn't get in touch for a month after that."

"I missed you too," says Enjolras.

Courfeyrac harrumphs as Combeferre elbows him out of the way. "We're glad you're okay," he says. "I like what you did with the hair. Much less recognisable. Did you say you were with _pirates_?"

"That bit was an accident," says Enjolras. "I bought passage on a ship, and they just happened to be pirates. They're good people. You'd like them, I think." They lean back onto their pillow and settle in, bask in their friends' presence even if it is only virtual. Enjolras tells them about the Musain, about the crew and their AIs, about the Imperial cruiser that had hailed them and the tracker, about the cybernetics and about how they had nearly told Grantaire what they were planning to do once Enjolras managed to get to their friends.

"It sounds like you trust them," says Combeferre eventually, when Enjolras's throat is hoarse and they've talked himself into circles and are starting to repeat things.

"I think I do," says Enjolras. "They could have turned me in at any time. My bounty's huge, and they're pirates. Their usual day to day is lurking around, preying on stupid rich people. But they haven't even hinted at it."

"And it sounds like you want to tell them," says Courfeyrac. He grins, and Enjolras doesn't really know why. It's a plan they've been hatching for years, and they've managed to keep it under wraps between just the three of them for that long. Enjolras can't imagine why Courfeyrac would be happy they want to let more people know about it.

Enjolras smiles ruefully. "I know, it's probably a bad idea –"

"No, I think it's great," says Courfeyrac, and Enjolras frowns at him. "It would be nice to have some more back-up for the plan. Do you know how difficult it is for you to trust people? You don't even completely trust Marius."

"His grandfather is one of the Emperor's closest councillors," Enjolras says automatically. They know Marius _means_ well, but still –

"And your grandparent actually _was_ the Emperor," says Courfeyrac dryly.

"They weren't my real grandparent – never mind," says Enjolras with a sigh. "I take your point. I'll think about it. If it feels right, I'll tell them."

There's a knock on Enjolras's door, and it's an ingrained enough reaction that Enjolras starts to stuff the commpad under his mattress before remembering that doesn't have to happen anymore. "Come in," they call, and turns to their friends again. "I'll talk to you later? I'll introduce you to everyone properly."

Combeferre nods. "Go. Socialise. We'll be here whenever you need us."

"I know you will," says Enjolras with a smile, and logs off.

"Hey," says Grantaire, sliding the door open. "Am I interrupting? I heard voices."

"No," says Enjolras. "Thank you for the access, my friends have been trying to get in touch with me. I'll introduce you later."

Grantaire looks surprised. "Will you?"

"You don't want to?" Enjolras frowns. They had assumed somewhere along the way that the two groups would meet, and probably cause a horrendous amount of trouble together.

"No, no, I'm sure your friends are great," says Grantaire quickly, "but we can always just beam you across to their ship once we're close enough."

Enjolras pauses. They've lived aboard the Musain for almost a month now, but it's easy to forget the passage of time in space, when they sleep and wake and eat when they want. It feels both like no time at all has passed, and like Enjolras has lived there forever. Enjolras knows the ins and outs of the crew of the Musain more than some of the people who have lived at the palace for years. It hasn't been a simple escort trip for them for a while. They'd assumed that they were _friends_.

"Unless you want to join us," Enjolras says quietly, and holds their breath, waiting for an answer.

"Join you," says Grantaire flatly, and it was probably a bit too much to hope that Grantaire would be enthusiastic about that idea. "Join you and the civil war on New Andromedae?"

Enjolras shakes their head. "My friends are helping the Separatists, but that's not why I'm going there." They watch Grantaire, wondering how much he remembers of their conversation last night.

"You're going to destroy the Imperial line," says Grantaire quietly. "You weren't bluffing."

"No."

Grantaire crosses his arms, and drums his fingers against his bicep. Enjolras holds their breath as they wait for a response. "How're you going to do that from New Andromedae. That's about as far out as you can manage."

"I'm just getting there to join my friends," says Enjolras. "They were spacebourne when the no-fly zone was instituted, so they're stuck in orbit, unable to fly down or out."

Grantaire raises an eyebrow. "You're spending a month in space to fly to New Andromedae so you can pick up your friends and fly them _back_ to Delphi through a no-fly zone?" He shakes his head. Enjolras just waits him out. "This probably needs to be a ship meeting," says Grantaire finally, but his face is pinched and reluctant.

"You don't want to," says Enjolras. It's not a question.

"Not really," says Grantaire. "But the others probably will." At least he's honest. It's more than Enjolras could have hoped for, really it is, but they're still irrationally disappointed that Grantaire himself doesn't want to.

*

Grantaire is right. Bahorel lights up at the idea of a rescue mission, and breaking multiple laws as a bonus. Feuilly hums quietly to himself, thoughtful, but Enjolras knows he sees and dislikes the control the Imperial family has over their every movement; and Joly and Bossuet became pirates when it was evident that they could help more people illegally when working within the lines. Éponine shrugs. "If you pay us, sure."

Grantaire alone swivels in his chair, and says nothing.

"What's the name of your friends' ship?" asks Joly when they're nearing the end of their warp, just outside the orbit of New Andromedae.

"Erm." Enjolras hesitates, which is probably the wrong move because it makes everyone in the room look over. They blush. "The Enjolras."

"The Enjolras," says Joly in disbelief. "Your friends are flying around in a ship called The Enjolras?"

"It was a line of ships that came out in celebration of the year I was born," snaps Enjolras, "and neither of them named it properly because they thought it was funny. So yes. It's still The Enjolras."

"So many insertion jokes," whispers Grantaire in awe. Enjolras opens his mouth, probably to tell him off, but Joly interrupts.

"Hailed them, got a reply asking for verification?"

"Tell them ' _For the people_ '," says Enjolras.

Joly pauses, fingers hovering above his keyboard. "That's it?"

Enjolras frowns. "Yes. That's our code-word to –"

"Never mind," says Joly. " _For the people_ it is. Old-school. I like it. Oh, they've replied already. Éponine–"

"On it," she says, setting their course. "We're going to get into the war zone soon. Everyone should strap in." Coming from Éponine, that's practically a dire warning. Enjolras runs for a seat, just in time for them to drop out of warp.

"Up ahead, two fighter ships," says Bossuet immediately.

"Whose side are they on?"

The ships open fire on them. Grantaire swears, and pulls them hard to the left. "I don't think they care. This is a no-fly zone," he says.

There are reasons the Musain has survived so far, Enjolras is sure, but they've never seen it first-hand. They are really, really good at what they do; in aerial fights, Grantaire and Éponine are the dream team.

Éponine is navigation – she plots the course for their autopilot, constantly noting where meteors and ships are, what spaces are free, where they can best circle round an enemy. She _anticipates._ And Grantaire?

Grantaire reacts. He's on the wheel, and he jerks them out of the way when there's unexpected debris or a sharp burst of fire into one of the spaces Éponine's noticed. He deals with the flying upside down and the angle of bank and stupid insane risks that has the autopilot blaring out warning alarms as he flies through explosions so quickly their gravity manipulators struggle to keep up.

The two fighter ships end up shooting each other, and Grantaire snorts.

Enjolras, their first time flying mostly upside down, feels like throwing themselves over a toilet and heaving up their insides. "Don't you have cloaking?"

"Yeah," says Grantaire, "but that's not fun."

The Enjolras is docked on one of the satellite stations above New Andromedae, theoretically stuck there since they're not allowed to fly out, and Grantaire does put the cloaking on once they get nearer, so the space patrols don't realise where they're headed.

"We're just about there," says Joly. "They can't detect us since we've got cloaking on, so I'm just letting them know we want docking permission." He reaches under his station and pulls out a bulky, green-rusted piece of equipment. Comm channels will show up, which means outdated technology is the only way to communicate if they're trying to fly in unseen. It's the first time Enjolras has seen one of these outside of a museum.

Static fills the ship, and Enjolras winces as it frissons straight up their spine. "Pirates of the Musain! And Enjolras! I see you somehow made it past the no-fly zone," says Courfeyrac cheerfully, his voice distorted and buzzing through through Enjolras's bones. "Welcome, welcome. You're as good as your reputation."

"We try," says Joly, speaking clearly into the mic. "We hear you're stuck in airspace. Anything we can do to help?"

"A lift would be nice?"

"Your ship is damaged?"

"No, but we're being monitored. We're known sympathisers to the Separatists, so the Alliance is trying to limit our movements. If our ship moves, they open fire."

Grantaire raises an eyebrow, and shrugs. "Meh."

"Not everyone can pilot like you do," says Enjolras, nudging him with an elbow.

"Was that a compliment?" asks Grantaire delightedly. "I think perhaps it was."

Enjolras hides their smile, and turns to Joly. "I know this is more than I asked of, you, but –"

Joly glances around the cabin, as does Enjolras. Enjolras isn't adept at communicating with nary a glance as the rest of the crew do yet, but what they see eases the tension in their stomach. "A lift would be fine," says Joly firmly. "Prepare to be boarded."

*

Enjolras follows Éponine and Grantaire on board. They've never been on board their namesake before. They'd already gone back to New Delphi when Combeferre and Courfeyrac had got their hands on it, decided to do for real the things they had always wanted to do at university but couldn't. They've only seen parts of it, in vids and pictures, which are starting to slot together like a mosaic of parts inside their head. It's a battered ship – twenty-one years makes it practically ancient – but the inside looks clean, and well lived in.

It's just the two of them, and Jehan, the ship's AI. Courfeyrac is packing the bulky server that hosts Jehan's master copy programming when they board, and Combeferre has two trunks open, haphazardly throwing clothes and tech into either without discrimination as they attempt to clear the ship out as quickly as possible.

Courfeyrac looks up, flicks a curl out of his face and bellows, "Enjolras!" as if their presence is entirely a surprise. He flings himself across the bridge, now getting cramped with the presence of more people, and Enjolras's body remembers Courfeyrac's hugs, remembers to brace itself as Courfeyrac's weight comes crashing into their chest and knocking the air out of them, his arms around Enjolras's neck, and Enjolras even remembers how to hug back.

It occurs to them, after a while, that hugs probably don't normally last this long. It takes effort to peel themself off Courfeyrac, and then Combeferre is slipping into his space instead, pulling Enjolras in and steadying them.

Enjolras pulls back to find themself crying a bit. "So," they manage in a wavery voice. "Long time no see."

"Forget _see_ ," says Courfeyrac impatiently, and elbows them in the side. "Long time no _touch_. Sometimes I forget you're not a hologram I can stick my hand through."

Laughing, Enjolras gestures behind them. "Let me introduce you. Grantaire and Éponine. Everyone else is still on the Musain."

"Thank you for the rescue," says Combeferre.

"Thanks for the obscene amount of creds," says Grantaire dryly, showing a little too much teeth as he smiles.

Courfeyrac raises an eyebrow, and Enjolras hastily points at Jehan, knowing it's futile to hope that none of them notice the blush rising over their collarbones. "I'll tell you about it later. We should get out of here as quickly as possible."

*

"You _like_ him," says Courfeyrac, as Enjolras helps him down into the Musain, each carrying one end of Jehan's server. They head towards the back of the ship to plonk him down near the other AIs on board the Musain, and Courfeyrac turns his head to indicate Grantaire, who's leading Combeferre down towards the living quarters.

"I," says Enjolras, and stops. "It's complicated."

"It's complicated _yes_ , or it's complicated _no?_ " asks Courfeyrac, huffing slightly as he opens a door with his knee.

Enjolras shrugs. "I don't have time to deal with liking people right now. We're going to change the power structure of the galaxy, Courf."

"We have a month in warp with nothing to do," says Courfeyrac. "I'm reasonably sure you do."

They leave The Enjolras with a basic list of functions – lights still turn on and off, and occasionally comm channels will run, to give the impression that Courfeyrac and Combeferre are still there, and Grantaire edges them out of the no-fly zone under cloaking, each of them at their stations and ready for if they're detected. But Grantaire is good at his job, and he gets the ship humming, ready to jump, and drops the cloak at the last second before slamming them forward into warp.

The bridge is full, people introducing themselves, Emilie squeaking indignantly when Courfeyrac tries to sit down at her usual chair and manifesting her holoav in it and shooing him away, Floreal trying to coax Jehan out into some sort of holoform as he explores the ships programming. Enjolras finally realises that the Musain really does run on a skeleton crew. There are meant to be _this_ many people here.

Combeferre's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline when Enjolras sits down at his usual seat, and he flushes. "It's just – the most convenient seat," he says.

"Of course its convenient. It's the Captain's seat," says Combeferre, and he's not even bothering to hide his smile.

(It's also the closest to Grantaire's, but that's got nothing to do with anything at all.)

"Right," says Enjolras. "Well. Erm. Thank you all for being here. I mean, not _here_ , since it's your ship, but _here_ , as in –"

"The arse-end of the galaxy, yes, we got that part," says Grantaire, and isn't just everyone amused at Enjolras today? It's nice to know they're being so entertaining.

"I figure I need to come clean, and be completely honest about what we're trying to do." Enjolras might not be the Imperial Prince of the galaxy anymore, but everyone still turns to listen to them. This sort of scrutiny used to make them uncomfortable, but holding people's attention is something that they're good at naturally and that's only been honed by courtly training. They don't utilise it often, but this is important. "We're going to destroy the Hyacinth."

"The Hyacinth," says Éponine. "The closely guarded secret of the longevity of the Imperial family? That Hyacinth?"

Enjolras nods. "If we destroy it, the Imperial family won't – can't – survive."

"What is it?" asks Bahorel. He laces his fingers together and pushes his hands away, clicking all his finger joints as he does so. "Is it a program that goes in those cybernetics of yours? I can deal with it if it's a program."

Enjolras frowns. "No, what – It's – oh. You don't know what it is?" They look around, and are met with blank faces. They had always known that the Hyacinth was never really spoken about, with only a few people outside of the Imperial family itself who know its location, but they had never considered that it was such a closely guarded secret that people didn't even know what it _was_. No wonder no one had ever tried to overthrow the Imperials; it simply wouldn't have been possible without this information.

"It's a flower," says Enjolras.

"Yeah, we know _that_ ," says Grantaire impatiently. "They're purple, they're all over your damn planet and they set off my allergies. What's your point?"

"The Hyacinth," says Enjolras, struggling to explain something they've known about all their life to people who know nothing about it. "I mean, it's a _literal_ flower that we have to destroy. It's what gives life to the Imperial babies. It's an... It's an artificial womb."

There's a pause. "Did they say what I think they just said?" asks Bahorel.

Enjolras sighs. "Yes. It's an artificial womb. In the shape of a flower. And without it, there will be no more royal babies."

"So the Imperial family doesn't want to deal with natural pregnancies. Plenty of people do that nowadays, so what?"

There's an even longer pause. Enjolras groans. "Look. Did you never stop to wonder why the Imperial family tree is so clean and linear? There are exactly three children born every generation. One to be the heir, one in case the heir dies and one to marry off in an alliance. There are no nieces or nephews hanging around to muddy the succession, because we're all _barren_. And we all look the same. Not _identical_ , sure, but definitely similar enough it looks like inbreeding. How has no one not noticed that we all look the same? "

"Not everyone pays as much to your family as you do," says Éponine dryly.

Enjolras scowls. "You _should_. The Imperial family controls – _every_ thing."

"Enjolras," says Combeferre, placing a hand on Enjolras's shoulder, and they sigh.

"I – yes. Sorry, Éponine. I just mean that ignoring the problem won't make it go away. I know how to _actually_ make the problem go away. The entire Imperial family is genetically engineered from specific sets of bio samples, which are stored in The Hyacinth."

"You're clones," says Grantaire slowly, softly. "You and Cosette and Gavroche and the Emperor, you're all _clones_ of each other. I thought that was outlawed after the second intergalatic war."

That was the one where every inhabited planet across three galaxies started breeding clones for their armies. Since then, teach person is only allowed to authorise one clone of themselves, grown at natural speed. The clone is treated as an autonomous person, and allowed to authorise one clone of themselves too, of course, but it has clamped down on the clone farming a lot.

Enjolras grimaces. "Not quite. Same bio sample sets, different combinations. The cybernetics that are inserted into us send feedback to The Hyacinth, and it runs through algorithms to get better combinations of genes each time."

"The height of selective breeding technology," says Courfeyrac grimly, and it's a look that doesn't suit his face.

Grantaire leans back, and drums his fingers on his chair arm. "So... you're telling us that there is an enormous purple flower on your planet that spits out Imperial babies every so often, and literally no one knows about it? _How?_ "

"No," says Enjolras. "It's not on the planet. It's inside the moon."


	4. Chapter 4

Grantaire has never before felt claustrophobic on board the Musain. The Musain is home, the only home he acknowledges despite the safehouses and properties he's got dotted across the galaxy. And yet, now, he feels hemmed in, like he's competing for air in a too-small space even though he knows the oxygen generators are perfectly capable of adapting to the increased human presence on board.

Two, three more people on board should not make this difference, thinks Grantaire. After all, the Musain was built for another five, or ten, even. Perhaps he has grown too comfortable, isolated away from most people.

He sits at his station – there's not much need for him to steer when they're in warp – and watches as Enjolras catches up with their friends; he's never thought of Enjolras as a lively person, but that was perhaps they were only half a person before. Together, Enjolras, Courfeyrac and Combeferre, the three of them make Grantaire think that it really would be possible to change the galaxy with one simple manoeuvre.

Of course, it's only simple in theory. Delphi's moon has never been inhabited for a long period of time. There are all sorts of superstitions surrounding it, rumours of undetectable poisonous gasses that went viral after a cult tried to colonise it, claiming it for their goddess. They had all mysteriously died one day. These superstitions are the work of the Imperial family, Grantaire assumes. There's got to be a small, elite team dedicated to keeping the secret of the moon.

Enjolras has blueprints, stolen off confidential Palace servers that take the combined powers of everyone to unravel the security on and even then, they're only partial. Jehan has been slowly collecting data on manufactured security systems that will help them over the years, and Bahorel offers up their expertise in dodging alarms and hacking security measures. Between them, they patch together a plan of what to expect.

Enjolras looks worried, but also triumphant, confident, and Grantaire wonders if it's just blind optimism, or whether they truly believe in themself so much.

It's Grantaire's turn to feel like an outsider, which hasn't happened in a while. Except Enjolras's friends are like his – they lure people into their web without even trying with their charm and their smiles and when Grantaire says that to Joly, Joly frowns.

"And you're, what? Expecting to get eaten alive at the end of it?"

Grantaire shrugs.

"Maybe we will," says Joly, and Grantaire looks at him in surprise. "Oh, come on. Did you expect me to tell you you're being irrational and stupid? Fairly sure you tell yourself that often enough, R."

It would feel patronising coming from anyone else, but Joly just smiles lop-sidedly at him. Grantaire huffs. "You know me too well. I don't know. I just think – this is too easy, isn't it?"

Joly looks at him with consternation. "You're the only one who thinks so." Grantaire frowns, and sits up, starts paying attention.

*

"Come in," calls Grantaire when there's a knock on the door of his room. Only one person knocks like this; the others usually pound, or rap perfunctorily before opening the door. Only Enjolras knocks like he might be turned away.

"Hey," says Enjolras.

"Hey. Did they need me up on the bridge?" Grantaire is essentially jobless when they're in warp, and he mostly spends the time squinting at their plans, which are less complete than he'd like them to be, and pointing out possible dangers.

Enjolras shakes his head. "Feuilly and Combeferre are working on something to help disable the bioscan alarms." That sort of engineering goes way over most of their heads. "I just wanted to say – sorry."

This is the sort of conversation where Grantaire needs to be sitting up. He swings his feet off the bunk, and gestures Enjolras in, so he's hovering in the doorway. "Whatever for?"

"I know you don't really want to do this, and you're stuck with us because you live on the same ship."

Grantaire snorts. "If I really didn't want to do this, I'd have asked you to drop me off on Theta Nine for a month long holiday."

"But still. This is dangerous, and you could all get hurt." Enjolras sits down next to him, carefully.

Grantaire leans back, propping him up with his arms behind him, and laughs. That catches Enjolras off-guard. "We're pirates, Enjolras. We live for the danger."

"I thought you did," says Enjolras, "but Joly told me about the sort of pirating things you do. You steal from rich people, and donate it to developing planets. You raid supply trucks for medical supplies for uninsured colonies. You steal government programming and release it on the streams."

"... And we _profit_ ," says Grantaire, lips curling up in a smile despite himself. "We're not _that_ charitable. I could probably buy my own planet with the amount I've got saved in unAllianced bank accounts. Hey, I could buy Theta Nine."

Enjolras shakes their head, amused. "Why do you like Theta Nine so much?"

Grantaire shrugs. "They're a nudist colony."

Enjolras chokes – and then lets it out in a proper laugh.

"And they have one of the top research centres for cyborg parts, which was why we went there in the first place, of course."

"Of course."

"Thanks," says Enjolras eventually. Grantaire turns to look at them quizzically. Enjolras shrugs, and leans back to match Grantaire's posture. "For sticking around just to make sure we get through it in one piece, even if you think it's a risky idea."

"I'm not –"

"Yeah, you are," says Enjolras, looking very pleased with themself.

Grantaire lets his arms give out, and flops backward onto the bed. "Oof. Yeah. I guess I am. Don't tell the others. I've got to maintain my cynical, aloof persona, you know."

Enjolras face appears above his as they lean over. "It's cute how you think they don't know."

Grantaire's trying to think of something to say to that, because he is _so_ cynical and aloof, thanks, but his brain apparently thinks it's appropriate to say, " _You're_ cute."

Enjolras blinks above him. "What?"

"Nothing," says Grantaire, suddenly blind-sided by himself, but Enjolras is smiling so it can't be too bad. "Don't worry about it. Thanks for dropping by."

Enjolras searches his face, as if they were expecting Grantaire to add something else, but Grantaire's wits have deserted him so Enjolras just sits up and makes to leave. "No, wait." Grantaire reaches out to fist the front of their shirt – Joly's shirt – without thinking. "I mean, sorry." He pries his reluctant fingers off, one by one, and smooths down the wrinkles he'd just made. "You can go, if you want."

"What if I don't want to?" Enjolras's eyes are wide, to the point where Grantaire can see the honey coloured rings around the outside of their irises. Their voice is strained, like it's an effort to stay where they are, and Grantaire can feel the erratic thumping under his fingers, which are still, for no reason Grantaire can think of, pressed against his shirt.

"Then stay," says Grantaire, his voice cracking unattractively – he makes to clear his throat, but Enjolras gets there first, leaning in and pressing their lips together, hands spreading across Grantaire's chest and thighs pressed against Grantaire's own.

Enjolras kisses like they're trying out a new food they're not sure they like, and that food happens to be Grantaire. They lean back, scrunches up their nose and smacks their lips together a few times as if said lips aren't puffed up from Grantaire’s bites and the press of his tongue, like Grantaire isn’t curled up against them, half-hard and nuzzling desperately at their neck in the hopes of more.

"Not bad," Enjolras pronounces eventually, but they ruin the effect by laughing afterwards.

Grantaire huffs and finds himself smiling, and strokes one knuckle across Enjolras's cheek. "Care to give it another try?"

*

The Musain circles around to the dark side of the moon, Enjolras pointing out the way to the entrance. The moon shows up as entirely biological on the computer scans, no doubt to hide the facility and there aren't any physical features that mark the entrance so Grantaire has no idea how they know where to land.

The ship touches down in a crater on the dark side, and Grantaire hands Enjolras the space suit Joly usually uses. "Comms are all synced," reports Bossuet once their helmets are all on, his voice clear inside their ears; he and Joly and staying in space for back-up and to keep an eye out for patrols.

Once they're cleared, Grantaire shrugs on his pack – between them, they're carrying everything they think might come in useful, from scanners to weapons to random connection cords – and waits for Feuilly to open the hatch.

Combeferre and Courfeyrac brought their own space suits, and Grantaire notes approvingly that all three of them look perfectly comfortable in space. Enjolras points at something and now they've drawn attention to it, Grantaire can see a tiny little control pad embedded in the crater, hidden in the shadow of the crater and virtually impossible to see from more than a few metres away.

"I've never actually been inside," says Enjolras, as they all huddle around. "I feel like I should admit that right now." He looks at Grantaire especially, but Grantaire doesn't do anything but offer his hand. Enjolras twines their fingers together, uncomfortable in the large space gloves but reassuring nonetheless.

Grantaire's snort is probably audible even over comms. "Just get us in, Enjolras. We can just blow the entire place up, after all." The explosives are in Eponine's pack.

Enjolras presses his Imperial seal to the control pad, and activation lines glimmer outwards as the shields drop and a hidden door slides open. The corridor ahead of them is pitch black, and Grantaire stares into the void, suddenly aware of how loud his breathing is in his helmet.

The fear only lasts for a second though. Lights flicker on as they pile in through the door, a motion sensor somewhere alerted to their presence, and when the door closes behind them, Combeferre reports, "Human-compatible pressure and gas levels. Gravity's a bit lower but it shouldn't be a problem."

Grantaire hits the side of his helmet, and pulls it off with relief.

There's an eerie quality to the manufactured air, it feels stifled and stale like no one's walked through these halls in a great many years. Their footsteps echo and the dust they disrupt floats in the air instead of falling.

The comm unit in the lobby has a floor plan, and Courfeyrac downloads it quickly into their suits. "The entire facility's bigger than I thought," says Enjolras thoughtfully, their voice reverberating and coming back distorted. "There are whole sections that aren't available in the plans we got."

"We should stick to the plan though," says Combeferre as he spins the floor plans and tries to figure out where it differs from their own. He's chewing his lip though, as if he's not certain of the judgement call he's making. "Too risky otherwise."

Grantaire nods. "We knew we'd be walking into the unknown. We should make the best of the time we've got."

Every one of them has the plan clear in their heads, so they move out, breaking into a jog that makes them bounce in exaggerated large steps across the floor due to the lighter gravity. Grantaire sticks behind Enjolras, and it's interesting to see how Combeferre and Courfeyrac have both moved to flank Enjolras; their mandatory Alliance training appears to be a hard habit to kick.

The main corridor hosts a variety of short-range teleporters, speaking of a facility that was once well-staffed and full of people. They all manage to fit into one, and Bahorel hits the button for the Hyacinth's main room.

A holowarning appears, startling them all when it appears in large red letters: AUTHORISATION REQUIRED.

"This should work," says Enjolras, leaning over to press his Imperial seal against it; a moment later, Grantaire feels the familiar sensation of his bones disintegrating and resolidifying.

"I hate teleportation," says Eponine, and shoves her way off the pad. Grantaire is right behind her, and near walks into her back, because she's just – stopped. "Whoa."

Grantaire peers out from around her, and blinks. "Whoa," he echoes.

There are similar sentiments behind them, because no number of blueprints and explanations could have prepared them for this. The ceiling is so high Grantaire can't actually see it; the actual floor drops down below them into darkness because they're standing on a bridged platform that leads from the teleporter to the Hyacinth itself.

The Hyacinth itself is enormous, a single flower bud looming over their heads; it looks like it's reinforced with metal at the base – like cyborg parts, but for plants, if that is a thing that even exists – purple and glowing with an unnatural amount of life. As much as Grantaire had been told about it, he honestly hadn't believed until this moment that there was an enormous flower breeding imperial babies somewhere. The entire room _hums_ with activity.

The side walls are packed with cryogenic vials. Enjolras had said that the Hyacinth had access to biosamples, but the sheer number of them line the wall like gleaming scales. Grantaire opens his mouth to say something witty, and finds that his mouth is dry; he has to swallow a few times.

"This many biosamples, and the Hyacinth spat out three blond kids in our generation?" It comes out weaker than he'd imagined it in his head.

Enjolras stares at him, truly just boggles at him; it's not until Courfeyrac cracks and starts laughing that Grantaire's poker face comes down too.

A smile sneaks reluctantly across Enjolras's face. "That's really not the least of my deficiencies, given I am trying to _destroy_ the Imperial line."

Grantaire shrugs, and starts off down the bridge. It's wide, and there are railings, but he would still probably do better not to look down. "I don't think there's an anti-Monarchy gene, Enjolras. That one's just your fault."

The wall behind the Hyacinth, now Grantaire can see it, is lined with vats, each carefully labelled – growth stimulant, hormones, nutrition – with thick tubes that lead into the centre of the room, pumping chemicals into the base of the flower. There are dozens of computers in front of them, monitoring and controlling, and for one single moment Grantaire thinks that this is going to be easier than they imagined. Feuilly will go for the central computer to download the data, and then they all get the heck out of there and blow the giant flower to pieces.

The comms buzz as the line opens, and then Bossuet is in their ear. "Alliance ships spotted. A couple of really big liners, so no chance they're just patrols, I'm afraid. You had better hurry it up. We'll try and hack them best as we can, but it's not our area of expertise."

The connection drops, and so does Grantaire's stomach. The Musain could open fire and hopefully distract the approaching Alliance soldiers for a bit longer, but they run the risk of being shot out of the sky. If it were just a patrol ship then they could probably run interference, but with liners approaching, there's no chance. They'll drop off the radar instead, using all of their stolen and pilfered non-Alliance tech to keep them out of the reach of Alliance ships; it means that they'll be nearby to pick everyone up when they're done, but it also means that the Musain won't be able to keep running scans for them or keep the comm lines open for fear of being intercepted.

"Enjolras, come on!" Behind him, Feuilly, Bahorel and Eponine have made a beeline for the computers, pulling out data ports and explosives from their packs respectively, and Enjolras runs after them. Grantaire deliberately turns his back. The rest of them are canon fodder, they all know this.

Well. At least they are useful canon fodder. Grantaire pulls a static grenade out of his pack, a familiar rush of adrenaline flooding his veins as he lobs it at the teleportation pads and fries the entire thing until it's a crackling mess of electricity and burnt wires. There are doors beyond the telepads, but it's bound to buy them a little time. He adds a hasty little forcefield generator, which is just about big enough to shield the group of them, and wishes there was more cover available.

"Estimated timeframe?" called Combeferre over his shoulder. Grantaire can see him in his peripheral vision, weapons similarly drawn as they stay focussed on the doors; there's a muscle twitching in his cheek, and his hand is gripped so tightly around his gun that his fingers are white.

"Mild complications," calls back Bahorel in a strained voice. "Like this fucking encryption that I can't crack." Grantaire grits his teeth; Bahorel has some of the most advanced black market software in the galaxy uploaded into his systems.

There's a sudden burst of static and they all clutch at their ears in alarm. It's followed by an electromagnetic pulse so strong Grantaire feels it reverberate up his legs; every machine in the room blips. "Joly, Bossuet? What just happened?" says Grantaire, but there's no sound at all, not even static. The comms are dead.

There's the sound of a shot fired from behind them and Bahorel crumples to the ground with a yell – Grantaire spins around, guns up even before he knows where to aim. Bahorel is on the ground, alive and awake and clutching at his cyborg parts; relief swamps Grantaire's stomach so quickly he feels nauseous. An electronic jammer then, not a gun, but that's still _impossible_ because Grantaire's forcefield stretches right over their heads, encasing them in a bubble so it would must have come from _inside_ –

Enjolras straightens up, the electronic jammer in one hand and a gun in the other. Their face is smoothed over, blank as Grantaire has never seen it before, and their eyes are dead. The gun is pointed at Eponine. "Don't move."


	5. Chapter 5

Eponine flicks her eyes over to Grantaire, and then Bahorel. Time slows; they’ve been working together for so long that he knows, he just _does_ , what she’s about to do. Her fingers twitch from where they had been frozen above her console, and makes a tiny, triumphant beep.

“What was that?” demands Enjolras, their voice hollow like a cyborg's vocal chords, and Grantaire is staring at them so intently that he _sees_ when their trigger finger starts to move.

Several things happen at the same time. Grantaire fires. Enjolras fires too, flinches when they hear the shot from Grantaire and swing around to look at him, suitably distracted. Eponine flings herself away from the console, betting that she can move faster than a bullet – and she can, at this range. There’s a reason guns are meant for long distances. Grantaire’s shot hits its mark – Enjolras’ electronic jammer. It spits static from the hole in its case as Enjolras screeches and drops it, and then Grantaire is looking down the barrel of Enjolras’ gun for a brief, terrifying moment before Bahorel smashes one metal fist across the back of Enjolras’ head.

Enjolras crumples.

“Good work team,” says Bahorel, still limping slightly as his knee recalibrates itself. Eponine hauls herself off the floor with a snort and goes back to her console, where the firewall has finally been breached. She doesn’t even spare a glance at the bullet, embedded in the floor where she had been.

“I thought we’d disabled their... whatever that was. What _was_ that?” asks Grantaire, who has his arms full of Enjolras.

“Probably some super secret Imperial back-up worm they got in them to make sure they don't defect. Which means they’ve probably been spying on us since the start, and we just let them,” says Combeferre grimly; he moves to cover them as Grantaire readjusts various limbs until he can heft Enjolras over his shoulder. Enjolras is distressingly light.

Bahorel makes a face, tests out his knee, and then plugs himself back in again, he and Eponine finishing their task with vigour. They’re not just wiping the data, they’re tracing it back up to anywhere it’s backed up, destroying the physical servers too, just to be sure, and attempting to put out a strong enough signal that those on the Musain will be expecting them back.

There’s noise from the corridor beyond the teleportation pads now, and Grantaire braces himself.

“We’re done, let’s get out of here,” yells Eponine. She switches the forcefield off and on cue, they make a dash back towards the teleportation area. The door chooses that moment to blow off its hinges, and Imperial soldiers fill the door; Grantaire shoots without blinking.

His aim is off, because he’s carrying Enjolras and jogging at the same time, but Combeferre’s not bad. The first few fallen bodies block the doorway enough that the next wave have to pause and heave them out of the way, buying Eponine enough time to reach in among all the sparks and yank out the static grenade.

“Come on, reboot,” mutters Bahorel, punching at the operating buttons; Grantaire breathes past the growing strain in his lungs – damn, he used to be fitter than this – and keeps on shooting. When the teleportation pads whirr back into life, the Imperial soldiers are visibly frantic to get through, but they can only fit through one at a time and Eponine and Combeferre keep bloody shooting them, and Grantaire allows a sliver of hope to rise in his stomach.

Of course, that’s when Enjolras wakes up, and promptly _kicks_ him in the stomach. The hope evaporates in a burst of pain.

“What the –” Enjolras struggles and Grantaire swears, drops him. Someone fires, and it grazes his arm and he hisses, tears automatically welling up in his eyes from the pain.

“Enjolras! STAY STILL!” Grantaire bellows, and hopes that it’s the Enjolras he knows, _his_ Enjolras, not the cold robotic thing with glazed over eyes from earlier.

Grantaire sees Combeferre from the corner of his eyes as he struggles to aim again; he shifts over to where Grantaire is and sticks an electronic jammer right into the base of Enjolras’ neck on the highest setting, and fritzes them. Grantaire dimly remembers someone saying, back when this all started, that Enjolras’ cybernetics were all entangled in his body, woven into their very existence. So it shouldn’t surprise him, not really, when Enjolras thrashes on the floor in pain, but it does.

“What’re you doing?” Grantaire yells, wanting, desperately, to look over, but they’re barely holding their ground now.

“Sorry Enjolras,” says Combeferre through gritted teeth as though he’s deaf to the screaming and the way Enjolras’ fingers scrabble on the cold floor for a long, agonising moment. “Just making sure you’re you.”

“Shitfuck,” says Enjolras from the floor, woozy with pain and their words slurred. “It’s me, and I’m so fried I can’t feel my fingers anymore.”

Combeferre laughs, fucking laughs, a hysterical note of giddiness and pain, and drops the electronic jammer, pulling Enjolras up to him in a hug. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry.” Grantaire swallows the lump in his throat.

“Telepad's reset, go!” yells Bahorel, breaking the moment, and Combeferre hauls Enjolras to his feet.

Enjolras looks around him, eyes not quite focussing, before they settle on Grantaire.”Grantaire...”

“Go,” says Grantaire. “I’ll be right behind you.” Combeferre hauls them into the telepad, and they disappear.

Eponine hurls a grenade – not a static one, one of those ancient explosive ones – at the door way and the three of them remaining dash for the telepads.

–

They teleport out into absolute carnage.

There’s three rows of Imperial soldiers shooting at them, their regimental formation making the best of the narrow corridor space. Combeferre’s managed to get their forcefield generator up; it’s fizzling under the force of long, continuous fire but between that and the cover of the teleportation pad hardware, they’re holding their ground. For now.

Grantaire’s head is overloaded in pain and it takes him a good few moments to realise that on top of the yelling and the sound of battle that it’s because there’s shouting in his ear as well.

“—REPEAT, DO YOU HEAR US?”

“FUCKING HELL, YES WE DO!” screams Grantaire in response, half in pain and half because he’s that fucking relieved at hearing Bossuet’s voice; a couple of the soldiers look at him in surprise, because that made no sense without knowing that Grantaire’s comms are back online but Grantaire doesn’t care. “Status?”

“Hiding. We managed to remotely disable their jamming equipment so comms are online. Wouldn’t count on them to be secure though, so I won’t tell you where we are.”

Grantaire moves up, leaving Eponine to disable the teleportation pads again so they can’t get hemmed in by both sides. “You’re injured!” He says to Courfeyrac in horror, seeing the dark hole in his spacesuit.

“Just the suit, I’m fine,” says Courfeyrac, not even bothering to look at him. He’s matching the timing of the forcefield, shooting single shots through when it fritzes and ducking any shots that come back their way at the same time. “Only a matter of time though. The forcefield is starting to go down for longer and longer periods of time.”

“Shit,” says Grantaire. “Bossuet. We’re finished, but we’re penned in, under fire. Anything you can do?”

“Not in a good position for firepower. Haven’t got any of their systems hacked. Only thing we can do is teleport you back onto the ship, but you’ve got to be on the surface, the moon reads as natural matter, you basically don’t even exist on our monitors right now.”

“Shit,” says Grantaire again. “We can do that. Just to the surface, right?” They’ve only got to get past these soldiers, through the door and to the end of the corridor, which was much easier on the way in.

“I’ve got an idea,” says Combeferre. “I can rewire it so the forcefield exerts outward force. One shot only.” He slides over to the forcefield generator and starts pulling the back off it.

“This is a crap idea,” says Bahorel, who’s grinning anyway. He’s protecting the edge of the forcefield from soliders trying to snipe around the edges, occasionally leaning out to shoot one with deadly precision.

“Eponine, get ready to go!” yells Grantaire, gearing up to make a run for it, cramming his helmet back on and setting the shields.

Combeferre works steadily, his fingers never wavering despite the tendons in his neck visibly shaking with the effort of concentration. “Bossuet. You know where the entrance is now. Can you set those co-ordinates for the teleportation? You need to zap us up the moment we appear, especially Courfeyrac. His suit’s been breached, so he won’t survive otherwise.”

His hands tremble for a moment and Grantaire’s heart skips a beat, thinks that Combeferre’s fucked it up, they’re all going to die here – “It’s ready. Forcefield will drop, then expand. Watch yourselves.”

Grantaire waits, his body vibrating from the effort to not take off too soon. When the forcefield drops, heat sears past Grantaire for just a second and he gasps involuntarily – then it expands, throwing itself outwards, smashing into the soldiers and flinging them against the walls. The generator spits with the effort, and shorts out. They run for it.

The troops are disorientated or knocked out; a few shots take care of the rest and they keep moving, Enjolras in front with his ring to open the door, and then they’re all pelting down the corridor, using the low gravity to spring them forwards. There’s shouting, and Grantaire ignores it, even the shouting in the comms in his ears, because if they get caught here, in this long, thin expanse of corridor with no cover and no forcefield, then they are goners. His field of vision narrows down to the backs of his friends, barely a step ahead of him, and the open hatch that leads out onto the surface, even as his heaving huffs of air fog up the inside of his helmet.

Grantaire only staggers when Enjolras lurches into him, the sound of their scream coming in through his comms because they’ve both got their helmets on.

Enjolras stares at the wound in horror. It's neat and round and smoking and goes straight through the suit, straight through their side. "I – I've never –"

"Keep going," says Grantaire, quashing his panic ruthlessly. The Musain isn't too far away and if they get onto the surface, they’re safe. They have medical equipment and Joly is on the ship. He keeps moving, half dragging Enjolras at the pace he's setting. "It doesn't look like it hit anything fatal and Joly has an old regen unit in the infirmary. Come on, Enjolras, stay with me."

"No," says Enjolras, eyes glazing over. "No, no, that won't work."

"What do you mean, it won't work?" asks Grantaire, starting to pant. Enjolras is trying to make their legs work the way they should but they're still a mostly useless weight leaning on Grantaire's left side. Eponine comes up behind them at a lope, the one bringing up the rear,and slams into them, hauling one of Enjolras’ arms around her until they’re moving again.

“Shot him back,” is all Eponine says.

“BOSSUET!” screams Grantaire as they hit the hatch, stagger out on the surface. He sees Combeferre and Bahorel shimmer away; Courfeyrac is already gone. Light fills his vision, and his bones melt.

They stumble into the Musain and Grantaire nearly weeps with relief. He yanks his helmet off, leaving it where it bounces on the floor, and fumbles for Enjolras’. Eponine takes off for the helm at a run, which leaves Grantaire to drag Enjolras towards the infirmary.

“Say it again,” says Grantaire. “Why won’t regen machines work?”

"We can't – the royal family. Regen machines won't work, our bio samples won't match anything in the system. We have special ones for our use."

"What're you saying?" asks Grantaire. "You want us to head back innerworld to find a regen machine that'll work on you? Floreal, patch us into the internal comms, they’ve got more security than external ones. Joly, you picking me up? Enjolras is hurt, need you in the infirmary."

The infirmary is nearby, at least, and Grantaire settles Enjolras back onto the bed, wrestling their boots off for them and tucking a pillow behind their back, not sure what else to do without Joly here.

"No," says Enjolras, with a pained smile. It's unfair how good they still look, even with sweat-soaked hair plastered to their head and the pain creases across their brow. "That's far too dangerous. It's not – you said it's probably not fatal, right? Then we can do it the old fashioned way. Bandages, and time."

Joly skids in. "Brief me," he says breathlessly, tugging a clean white coat on.

"Laser gun shot," says Grantaire. "Sizzled straight through the side. Isn't bleeding too badly, but obviously –"

"There will be the burn too, yes," says Joly grimly, snapping on a pair of gloves.

"Regen machine not compatible," adds Enjolras, face pale and drained.

Joly's eyebrows fly up into his hair. "That complicates things. I hope you realise I haven't had to do actual surgery since I studied how to do it?"

Grantaire frowns, stumbling for a moment as the ship lurches, and the gravity simulators struggle to keep up even with Floreal handling it. "But – you've patched us up plenty of times when we didn't have regen machines."

"Sewing up a few stitches is different," says Joly. He slips a mask over Enjolras's face, pumping anesthesia. "I have to actually cut the burns off so skin will regrow underneath," he says to Grantaire in a low voice, and watches until Enjolras's eyes droop closed and their head drops back against the pillow. They readjust Enjolras so they’re lying down properly.

Joly works quickly, even with Grantaire watching intently, his hand tucked absently under Enjolras's own. "I think that's it," says Joly eventually. "It'd be best if we could get them to a compatible regen machine, but I suppose that's a bit difficult right now. I've given them a shot of growth stimulant, and that's all I can do, really."

"Thanks," says Grantaire. He wants to stay, but that would be sentimental – too sentimental given that he’s one of the two pilots on board and from the turbulence it feels like Eponine’s having a hard time.

“I’ll stay,” says Joly, because he knows Grantaire. “Keep an eye on his vital signs and see if there are any complications from those pesky Imperial cybernetics.”

Grantaire winces at the reminder.

“What?”

“When we were down there, they took remote control of them somehow. Jammed up Bahorel for a bit until we knocked them out. Combeferre fried them good, but none of us know if it’s dormant or keeping its head low or what.”

Joly raises an eyebrow, and takes up the stun gun Enjolras had previously, pointing it cautiously at Enjolras’ unconscious body. “In that case, I’m definitely staying.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Took you long enough,” says Eponine when Grantaire slides into his seat, but it has none of her usual bite.

“Couldn’t do it without me?” Grantaire rallies back, but he’s too busy assessing his monitors to make it sound serious either.

Eponine swerves them past a liner, sliding low along the surface of the moon; it’ll help stay off their scanners but they’re also screwed if their belly scrapes across the surface. “I just need enough distance go to into warp,” says Eponine. “We won’t be able to go far, because we won’t be able to stop for fuel, but it’s our best chance.”

"And I'll bet that's exactly what they're trying to stop us from doing?" asks Grantaire, strapping himself in. He takes over gradually, so as to not throw Eponine's rhythm off, which frees her up to do the wider planning, take in where all the different ships are and plot their best escape plan.

"Fuck," says Grantaire as gunfire catches them, battering their shields just enough to score long dents across the Musain's hull. He hates fixing dents. Grantaire keeps them on the move, keeps them out of range and Feuilly's taken over the weapons station. They don't use their weapons often, but they keep them updated and well maintained, so Feuilly chips away at their large, polished ships slowly but surely.

"There," Eponine says, and Grantaire swipes the data she tosses from her monitor to his across his screen and readjusts. "Floreal, let's up the gravity. Make sure everything sticks to the ship," he says. "We're going to be spiralling."

"I hate spiralling," says Bahorel, strapping himself in pre-emptively, even though Grantaire's never actually sent them sprawling across the ship when he's done it before.

"What's spiralling?" asks Courfeyrac, and Grantaire starts. He'd almost forgotten that they had new people on board, people they'd have to explain things to.

"It's exactly what it sounds like," says Feuilly with a short bark of a laugh, because Grantaire is too busy avoiding gunfire to chitchat right now. "Grantaire's going to pull the ship up and around, and spin us through that stupidly narrow gap between those two liners, and Eponine is going to send us into warp at the same time."

"Isn't that incredibly dangerous?" asks Combeferre. "The spiral motion pus the accelaration into warp --"

"Yep."

"Oh."

There's a moment of terse silence. People don't tend to comment on Grantaire's piloting judgement, mostly because when explained out loud, it does tend to sound a little bit... well. Unhealthy.

"Have you done this before?" asks Combeferre eventually, hopefully, and Grantaire almost laughs at him.

"Sure. And we haven't died yet, which counts for something, right?" Grantaire's pulled them up to the dark side of the moon now, and he's hoping that if he shuts off all the lights, including dimming all the monitors – "Whoa!" says Courferre, because no one thought to warn him about that bit – and drops them low again, pulling up their cloaking that it'll confuse the hell out of the liners, which gives him enough time to make a u-turn and point them in the right direction.

This would be easier if he could see anything.

"Ready," says Eponine in the darkness.

"Let's go," says Grantaire hoarsely, and pushes them forwards.

"The high pitched sound of their engines pushing them into warm speed grows louder, encasing them in the sound. It's not until Grantaire sees all tracking of gunfire drop off his motion that he relaxes, realises that he's done it. "We're in!" he says.

Floreal drops the gravity levels again-- harder to maintain high g in warp -- and they all feel the sudden swaying of the ship; Grantaire pulls her in slowly until she's steady, not spiralling anymore. He stretches, and three vertebrae in his back click.

"I'll take over," says Eponine, oddly gently.

Grantaire blinks. "What?"

"Infirmary?"

"Oh," says Grantaire, patching into the comms again. "Yeah, right. Joly. How are you?"

" _I'm_ fine," says Joly dryly. "No signs of Imperial brainwashing as of yet. Or consciousness, actually. Are you coming back down?"

"Yeah," says Grantaire pre-emptively ducking. "Eponine can handle it now it's the easy stuff." Eponine waits until he straightens up again before throwing a shoe at him.

"Come on," says Grantaire, waving at Courfeyrac and Combeferre as they fumble with the safety harnesses. He takes them down to the infirmary. “Joly said he’s going to be fine, nothing vital after all, but he’ll be healing almost naturally slow.”

“He’s used to it,” says Courfeyrac, smiling more than Grantaire would have thought after seeing his friend shot. “There used to be Separatists shooting at him when we were at university, before they realised that he was practically one of them.”

“Huh.”

–

It takes Enjolras a few days to actually wake up; Grantaire eventually splits the time with Courfeyrac and Combeferre, each agreeing that since he isn’t in any actual danger, there was no point depriving themselves of sleep and nutrition when they were being hunted and Imperial cruisers could turn up along their warp path at any moment.

Grantaire is sprawled in the chair next to Enjolras’s bed when he wakes, idly watching a programme on his datapad. He’s using one hand to navitage when needed, but his other hand is tucked under Enjolras’s own. Enjolras’s hand clenches and Grantaire looks up. Thick eyelashes flutter, and Grantaire pauses his programme, leans in. “Hey.”

Enjolras turns slowly to look at him. “Grantaire. We made it out.” Their words are woozy with sleep.

“Yeah.”

“You’re safe.”

“Yeah.”

“I—I got shot...?”

“Yeah, but we patched you up,” says Grantaire. He raises his hand, pauses for a moment as if waiting for permission, and the lifts the side of Enjolras’s shirt to show them.

There’s a filmy layer of antibacterial bandage, and underneath it the flesh is red and raw where Joly had to cut the burnt skin away, but the stiches are neat and taut and whoever’s watching him has instructions to spray more painkillers over the wound every four hours. It’s not a bad job for an undersupplied pirate ship and no regen possibilities.

“That looks suitably horrible,” says Enjolras faintly. “I’m glad I can’t feel it. How long have I been out?”

“Two days,” says Grantaire. “We got into warp with barely a few scratches. We want to make a pit stop for more fuel and siege supplies, but we can’t decide where it would be safe to land.”

Enjolras frowns. “But the plan was to head down to New Delphi and dismantle the councils, show the galaxy the secret of the Imperial line.”

Grantaire hesitates. Perhaps Courfeyrac or Combeferre should be here; perhaps they would know better what to say to make Enjolras understand how impossible that would have been. “You were injured,” he says instead.

“So?” Enjolras starts to sit up, first gingerly and then all at once when he realises that the painkillers are doing their job. “The plan didn’t hinge on me!”

“It really did,” says Grantaire, taken aback. “Without you speaking up and exposing the secret, what do you think it would have looked like? A bunch of space pirates who kidnapped the Imperial prince and landed a major blow to the Imperial throne. I know you’ve been unconscious, but we are at the top of the Alliance’s Wanted list right now. I mean, technically we were always wanted, but now, now it’s serious. ‘Highly dangerous criminals, recommended shoot on sight’ and all that.”

“But,” says Enjolras, staring at Grantaire uncomprehendingly. “I just – the _plan_ , what are we going to do about the plan?” They look lost.

“Come up with a new one,” says Grantaire. “Surely you have a back-up plan. With the number of liners descending on us back then, it would have been impossible to make it on-planet without getting shot out of orbit.”

“That plan took three years of honing,” says Enjolras, voice rising in both volume and pitch as their chest heaves with gasped breaths and Grantaire realises suddenly, belatedly, that it’s hysteria, an uncontrollable pure reaction that’s giving way to panic.

“Floreal, get Joly down here. Or Combeferre, Courfeyrac. Someone.”

“Grantaire, don’t treat me like an idiot,” snaps Enjolras, grabbing his arm so tightly that Grantaire gasps. “We had one shot, _one shot_ , and we fucking blew it! I’ve been out for two days! Do you know how much media propaganda can be churned out in two days? That’s practically a lifetime on the streams! We should’ve, we should’ve–”

“Should’ve what? You were unconscious, Enjolras. Like it or not, you’re the head of this revolution. It doesn’t work without you. Without you, we’re just more Separatist extremists.”

“You’re blaming me for being unconscious? I was _shot_ —”

“Of course not! But without you to tell us what to do, we don’t fucking _know_ what to do!”

Grantaire realises that his chest is heaving as much as Enjolras’s now; their faces are a mere handspan apart as they glare at each other, speechless, out of ideas, out of energy.

“Let’s get to the bridge,” says Enjolras eventually. “I need to be briefed, and then we need to make battle plans.”

Grantaire rocks back on the flats of his feet, breathing easier now. “You’ll pull your stitches.”

“Then _carry me_ ,” snaps Enjolras.

Grantaire does. They ease Enjolras so that he’s leaning into Grantaire’s chest, arms looped around Grantaire’s neck with his injured side facing outwards. He’s light in Grantaire’s arms, and running a little hot, and they both ignore the way Enjolras is trembling a little still.

Halfway down the corridor, Grantaire manoeuvring slowly so that he doesn’t knock Enjolras’s feet into the walls, Enjolras raises their head from where it’d been tucked into the curve of Grantaire’s neck, and says quietly, “Thank you.”

–

They can’t decide.

Half of them think they should turn around, salvage the original plan; half of them think that they’ve lost the element of surprise now and it would be better to get to non-Alliance space and regroup, perhaps hack into some of the mainstream broadcasts and leak their information there.

Grantaire just wants to get as far away from this mess as possible. His bounty’s jumped to five thousand credits, all of theirs have – that’s ten years’ wages when he’d been a commercial pilot, the same sum that Enjolras paid them at the start of all this. It feels like years ago. He’d always been proud of his bounty, the knowledge that he was irritating someone, somewhere, but the sheer size of it gnaws at his nerves.

For now, every moment they spend in warp, they’re further from New Delphi, so they’re re-routing to a space station in the Metis system – it’s still in Alliance space, but Eponine’s got contacts there. They’ll power down the ship, make a few cosmetic changes so that her tracking signal is different, and hide out until they’ve decided what to do.

Enjolras is, predictably, furious. They look like they want to stand up, slam their hands down and simply order everyone to do what they want, and it’s probably only because the painkillers are wearing off that instead they clutch at Combeferre and insist that they could still carry the plan through.

“They’re ready for us now,” says Bahorel. “And we’ve been in warp for two days. They’ll have had time to gather their ships into an armada and meet us. You know me, I love head-to-head fights, but that’s just pointless. You’ll get yourself killed, and us with you.”

“Then I’ll go by myself,” says Enjolras, eyes flashing. “Put me on a longboat, sling me into orbit space and I’ll go by myself. If I have to die for the people to be free, then I’ll die.”

All of them fall silent at that.

It’s Joly, eventually, who reaches out and jabs Enjolras lightly in their injured side. Enjolras grunts, and clutches at their ribs. “ _No one_ ,” says Joly, “is dying. _Especially_ people I just spent time and effort on making sure that they didn’t bleed out and die, you hear me? Let’s go to the Metis system. Restock, refuel, take a day to think about it. And then we’ll take a vote on it like proper democratic human beings, alright?”

Grantaire goes to his bunk after that, unable to take the strained atmosphere of the bridge. He almost laughs when there’s a recognisable knock on his door not five minutes after that, because of course Enjolras would want to talk about it.

“Come in,” he says.

Enjolras shuffles in, waits for the door to close itself before speaking. “I wanted to know where you stand,” says Enjolras, and there’s something off about their tone of voice. Grantaire wonders briefly if they’ve been taken over again, but their eyes are normal.

“You know where I stand,” mutters Grantaire.

“I wanted to know if you’d changed your mind,” says Enjolras, sitting down next to Grantaire so that their thighs press together. His hand hovers over Grantaire’s knee and Grantaire watches it until they pull back, shoving their hand into their jacket pocket instead.

Grantaire tilts his head back a bit so he can see Enjolras’s face. “The last time you came here and did this, this _thing_ , you said that you were sorry for dragging me into your mess, and you understood why I didn’t want to get involved.”

Enjolras flushes. “This time you’re already involved. This time, I – I _want_ you to want to be involved. With me. Grantaire, please.”

“You want me to follow you into the dark.”

“It’s not the dark,” says Enjolras, looking up at Grantaire with pleading eyes. “It’s – it’s the light. Something new, a new chance for the galaxy.”

“What if we fail?”

“Then we fail,” says Enjolras matter-of-factly, and it’s slowly starting to sink in for Grantaire that Enjolras made their peace with this long ago, before they’d even met Grantaire, they had known that they might not survive this revolution. “But at least we _tried_. Why don’t you even want to try?”

"Because I'm a coward!" snaps Grantaire, hunching in on himself. "Because, because I _like_ being in the shadows, doing stuff no one knows about or don't report. I don't particularly want to be caught and tortured and executed, thanks."

Enjolras blinks. “You’re scared.”

“Yeah! Aren’t you?!”

“I am,” says Enjolras, taking their hand out of their pocket to place it on Grantaire’s knee. It’s shaking. “I’m really, really scared.”

Grantaire forgets, sometimes, how young Enjolras really is. He wraps an arm around his waist, careful to avoid his injured area, and pulls Enjolras close to him in a hug. Enjolras trembles against his chest, and Grantaire trembles back.

–

The rest of the trip to Metis and even after they dock, Enjolras spends all their time in Grantaire’s room. The two of them don’t talk about the revolution at all. They talk about other things, parts of the galaxy they’ve been to, their favourite foods; the Imperial siblings, Cosette and Gavroche; art, music. But not the revolution.

Enjolras lies against the wall, head propped up on one hand, and smiles at Grantaire. Grantaire takes their hand, kisses the knuckles, kisses the Imperial seal ring still on Enjolras’s finger.

“Don’t do that,” chides Enjolras, making to pull their hand away, but Grantaire snatches it back, turning his arm over so he can kiss the inside of the wrist instead. He slowly presses kisses up Enjolras’s arm until he reaches the base of Enjolra’s neck; he pulls back to find that the smile’s faded from their face, replaced by a solemn, thoughtful look instead.

“So somber,” says Grantaire, touching their lips with his fingers.

“Not really. Just thinking,” says Enjolras. “Memorising, really.”

“Memorising?”

“What this feels like.”

Grantaire presses Enjolras onto the bed, careful of the bullet wound, and nuzzles Enjolras’s lips with his lip, barely brushing until Enjolras is leaning up into him to find him instead. They kiss, swallowing words unsaid, Grantaire exploring, biting, licking along Enjolras’s lower lip until Enjolras raises their hands to cradle Grantaire’s face, hold him still so they can do the same back.

They make out like teenagers, wet and too much teeth until Enjolras rolls over to sprawl across Grantaire’s chest, and then it’s slow and languid like they never intend to stop.

"Ah," says Enjolras suddenly. "Sorry, but no."

Grantaire's hand freezes from where it's been sneaking its way further south and is now tracing Enjolras’s waistband. "No?"

"No," says Enjolras. "Erm. Not ever."

Grantaire blinks. "Not _ever_?"

Enjolras detaches himself from Grantaire's grip and Grantaire tries not to stare at him, at his kiss-bitten lips and flushed cheeks, and his dishevelled hair and rucked-up shirt. "No. Sorry. I mean. It’s not you. It’s me. Not like that. It’s – I’m asexual. And I'm infertile. We all are." He's using that tone of voice again, as he does when he talks about the royal family.

"You _all_ are," repeats Grantaire in confusion. "Wouldn't that be quite rare?" Enjolras starts pulling his shirt straight, starts erasing the signs of Grantaire, and Grantaire's heart thuds painfully in his chest. "Is this something to do with the genetic engineering?"

"I'm not – I don't actually know. The infertility, yes. It makes it easier to stop the dilution of the bloodline when none of us can carry it on. It means all new family members have to come from the Hyacinth. But the asexuality – I don't know. Can sexuality be bred? I think that's just me. I know Cosette –" He snorts. "Well, she's definitely not."

Wow. Grantaire did not need to know that about the Imperial Princess, he really didn't.

"But," says Grantaire, reaching out before Enjolras can tuck themselves away again, "that doesn't have to mean we don't – we can still. Be together. Right? I mean, I don't really care if you're infertile. I'm not really planning on getting pregnant."

Enjolras laughs at that, and slides his hand into Grantaire's, tugging him closer. Grantaire hesitantly curls his arms around Enjolras’s waist. "You don't mind?" asks Enjolras. "I know you're sexual. Very sexual. I overheard you talking to Bossuet about that week you spent on Theta Five–"

Grantaire covers his mouth with his own. He runs his tongue across the plumpness of Enjolras’s lower lip, and nuzzles his nose against Enjolras’s cheek. "I don't care," he says. "I can still hardly believe _you_ want _me_ at all and seriously I have _no_ idea why you'd want me if you're not interested in my cock because I can safely say that's the only appendage I am talented at using. You're an idiot."

Enjolras pouts, and pinches Grantaire in the soft, warm flab at his side.

Grantaire squirms, and laughs, but later on, when they’ve got the lights dimmed and Enjolras is drooping off, Grantaire says, “We should go back to Phoebus after all this is over. Take a little yacht and watch the falling stars properly, just the two of us.”

–

Grantaire lies. He's sorry he has to do it, but it's the only thing he can think of to get them, his friends, _Enjolras_ , out of here in one piece. He reaches out for the heavy ring around Enjolras’s finger, and leaves while Enjolras is still sleeping.


	7. Chapter 7

"Floreal. Can I borrow your holoav projector?" asks Grantaire. "I'll be taking it out of connectivity distance."

"Sure," she says, distracted, and she doesn't suspect a thing. She'll realise, later, and hate Grantaire, but Floreal is an AI, and that comes with limitations. No matter how many possibilities she can process in a single second, she still can’t extrapolate the future. And so, for now, she'll hum and shrug and give him her holoav projector with no complaints.

He takes one of their longboats – both their AIs are in the space station, figuratively and physically, their servers linked up with Jehan and merging their codes so that their signals will be different from previously. That leaves the longboats lonely and empty and bereft of an AI, which is exactly why he’s borrowing it. He also takes their backed-up, back up drive.

Grantaire puts his hands on the steering and adjusts the unfamiliar seat; lets Enjolras’ master ring do its job and boot the longboat up. Both relief and nausea swamps him when it works, and the longboat comes alive under his hands. Grantaire takes a deep breath and drops out into space. He's heading towards the palace.

It's strange, flying through space in a boat designed to hurtle through atmospheres. Grantaire has plenty of experience, but he finds himself oversteering, or accidentally turning the indicator lights on instead of decompressing the cabin, and he finds himself on high alert, expecting a hail as soon as someone discovers him missing. He sets his course, and sets to work on the holoav.

It takes four days to fly back to New Delphi, and the longboat doesn’t have a bunk, just the main cabin. Grantaire hooks himself up to the bottom half of a space suit after the first few hours because he’s an idiot who didn’t think of basic bodily needs and it’s the only sanitary disposal system he has.

It’s practically a relief when he finally drops out of warp and the familiar planet of New Delphi looms ahead. He shucks the suit, buckles himself in and practically throws himself at the atmosphere. He doesn't even stop to aim for the public spaceport. There’s surely a private Imperial landing pad, and it's only a matter of getting over the palace for long enough to spot it. His comm signals blare out, and Grantaire winces for the five seconds it takes for him to find the switch to receiving the incoming message; he’s not used to working this ship without an AI.

" _You are flying over restricted airspace. Please provide your authorisation of passage or prepare to be shot down._ "

Grantaire is prepared for this. The holoav, strapped to his belt, flickers on, and settles over his skin. It's strange, looking out through a layer of hologram, but it looks perfect when he peers at himself in a mirror. "Well, fuck me," he says out loud, and the voice modulator is working perfectly. It's time to fool whoever is on the other end of the vidstream.

"This is Enjolras, formerly Crown Prince of Apollon. I am surrendering myself," says Grantaire, and Enjolras’s voice comes out of the modulator. It had been easy to put together a realistic holoav of Enjolras, one of the most high-profile celebrities in this galaxy. Grantaire had pulled sound clips from newscasts, and built the avatar from picture and video analysis, leaving the hair long and flowing. It won't fool anyone who actually knows Enjolras, of course, but it'll hold up for now.

The screen flickers on and shows the Chief of Imperial security, Javert, and Grantaire automatically sits up straight, attempts not to fidget and to exude that aura that Enjolras does just naturally.

Javert narrows his eyes at Grantaire. "Why? Why would you surrender?”

“I want you to spare my – friends.”

“Your co-conspirators,” says Javert, and snorts. “And why should we spare them?”

“I’m sure you know by now that the Hyacinth was blown up, all data within the moon destroyed and all copies and back up systematically erased. All the bio-samples were set alight and with those gone, the Imperial family has come to an end.” Grantaire pauses dramatically, much as Enjolras naturally does; Javert’s been scowling increasingly more as he’s gone on, until Grantaire holds up the drive he’s stolen from his friends. “I have a copy of all of that data.”

“And you would swap this data for the lives of your friends?”

“Yes,” says Grantaire. The hand holding the disk up is starting to tremor; he swiftly sets it down, out of sight of the comms projector.

“The landing pad has been made available to you," says Javert eventually.

Grantaire slouches after he lands, hoping that no one will notice that Enjolras is taller than usual. It has been months since they've seen him in person, after all. The holoav has Enjolras bundled in up clothes to account for his extra bulk, and Grantaire hunches into it as he puts his hands up and lets men surround him.

The hologram holds out until Javert steps forward, here to meet him personally, with a security scanner in his hands. The hologram statics out, disappears altogether as all foreign software is shut down and Grantaire is left there, standing by himself. Javert's face clouds over. "Impersonating an Imperial person," he says, and leaves the rest of the sentence hanging as if he's not even sure what sort of crime that counts as.

"Formerly-Imperial person,” says Grantaire helpfully, deliberately ignoring the way his heart is pounding exponentially harder with each beat until it’s a persistent pain against his chest. “But I _do_ have the data.”

–

The prison is high tech. He's rubbing elbows with some of the most wanted criminals in the galaxy here. The food gets teleported right into his cell, and they're bothering to give him real food, and not foodpacks. There aren't any actual walls, just forcefields on all sides, which makes for a very unsettling lack of privacy when his neighbour leans against the forcefield adjoining their cells. The ceiling even looks out into the sky.

Javert took the hard drive, of course, and if Enjolras were here they’d probably kill Grantaire right now for undoing all their work, work that Enjolras got _shot_ for. But Grantaire did have a plan. It was half-baked, but at least it was only _half-_ baked. He knew that there was no way his disguise as Enjolras would hold up past when he touched down on-planet. He’s not nearly as much of a bargaining chip, and his leverage had been taken off him when he’d been arrested so he highly doubts that anyone has any intention of honouring the bargain they’d made. That’s why it’s not his actual plan.

The data is corrupted – there’s enough on there to convince the Imperial forces that it’s the right data, but certain crucial parts are missing so that rebuilding will be impossible. Plus, there’s a virus. After all, Grantaire did just spend four days in space with nothing better to do.

It’s still an awful plan, and involves him dying at the end of it, but. Grantaire just hopes that he bought his friends enough time. He’s left a note detailing his betrayal – not for Enjolras, because he’s too cowardly to do that, but addressed to Joly and Bossuet. The Imperial forces won’t figure it out for a while, when they start making blueprints and redesigning, that the data is incomplete, and the virus is slow acting, buried line by line beneath layers of code. That gives the rest of his friends plenty of time to get out of Alliance space, maybe buy their own planet.

Very little happens over the next couple of weeks. No guards come to update Grantaire on what’s going to happen to him. He talks briefly to his neighbours in the adjoining cells, but then they change the forcefields around his cell soundproof, and then the others start getting moved to cells further away. After three days, the bank of cells on Grantaire’s row is entirely empty.

Javert visits him, about three weeks after Grantaire has been imprisoned. It’s a strange visit. He stands outside Grantaire’s forcefield cell and stares at him, as if he might unravel Grantaire’s secrets through the sheer force of his eyeballs. He twists the Imperial ring that Grantaire had stolen off Enjolras’ finger over and over in his hands.

It’s hard to ignore him, but Grantaire pretends he’s not there, lying down and shutting his eyes. He wonders where Enjolras is instead.

–

Enjolras is here.

“Grantaire!” says Enjolras as the guards escort them into the cell next to Grantaire’s. Grantaire stares over in incomprehension. Enjolras throws themself at Grantaire the moment the guards leave, gasping in shock as they hit the forcefield between their two cells and Grantaire is across his cell and pressing against the forcefield before he knows it.

“What,” says Grantaire. He’s been trying to convince himself for days that he’ll never see Enjolras again, that Enjolras is safe – and really far away from here. “What – why are you here?!” He scrabbles at the smooth invisible barrier between them and hopes, prays that this isn't a hallucination or a hologram or – or something designed to manipulate him, break him.

"It's me," says Enjolras, pressing their hand in the same spot as Grantaire’s, and Grantaire imagines he can feel the heat of Enjolras’ palm through it. "It's really me."

“Prove it,” says Grantaire desperately.

“You said we’d go see the falling stars when this was all over.”

Grantaire swallows. “I said we _should_ ,” he croaks weakly, but his throat is already seizing up with guilt and shame.

“I think we should as well,” says Enjolras fiercely. “Also, everyone is absolutely furious. _I’m_ furious.”

Grantaire laughs despite himself, a strange explosive bark of phlegm and tears, and leans forward until his forehead leans against the forcefield too. “I told you all to get as far away as you could.”

“Since when were we ever good at doing what we’re told?” Enjolras slides down until they’re crouched, looking up at Grantaire. “We came back for you. Everyone did.”

That shocks Grantaire back into reality. “Everyone?”

“Haven’t you heard the news? We launched a full-scale attack on the Imperial armada.”

“I haven’t had any news in weeks – wait, _what_?” Grantaire slides to the floor so he can look into Enjolras’ eyes and sees nothing truth and determination and vigour. Shit. “A full scale attack with _who_?!”

Enjolras huffs a laugh. “I’ll admit, a single ship and its two longboats isn’t a particularly impressive of attack, but we did quite a lot of damage, and a few Separatist ships in the area helped.”

“What happened?” asks Grantaire, bile rising in his throat. “You can’t have managed to – you must have got annihilated! Where is everyone?”

“We were losing,” says Enjolras calmly. “So I surrendered myself to save everyone.”

Grantaire stares at them. As calmly as he can with his heart thundering in his chest so hard he thinks it might break a rib, he says, “That’s a crap plan.”

“That’s my line.”

–

Enjolras negotiated for his release, apparently. Enjolras had surrendered themself willingly in return for the armada to stop firing on the Musain and the two longboats, giving them a days’ head start before giving chase. A whole day is a lifetime in warp speed, and even with one busted engine the Musain will be uncatchable. There’s more to the story, Grantaire suspects, but Enjolras is economical with their words in the monitored prison.

Two days later, Enjolras is worrying at the empty space on their ring finger. “They should have released you by now. That was part of the conditions.”

Grantaire rolls over to crack an eye open at Enjolras. “You kinda lost your leverage when you let them arrest you,” he says finally. “There’s no reason for them to do what you asked when they’ve got you in the palm of their hand.”

“There’s honour,” says Enjolras. “Javert has always been an honourable man.”

“Who works for a corrupt system.”

It’s Enjolras’ turn to look over at Grantaire with a strange expression. “I never thought you would be the one to say that to me.”

Grantaire licks his lips, and changes the subject. “I’m sorry about your ring.”

Enjolras looks down at their hands in surprise, as if they hadn’t noticed the fiddling. “Don’t be. If it hadn’t been so useful to keep, it would have been the first symbol of what I used to be to go.”

“I mean, I’m sorry about the whole taking it and – you know.”

“Oh.”

“I had to.”

“I know,” says Enjolras, and finally smiles lop-sidedly. “I thought we’d be too late, that they’d have scheduled your execution for as soon as possible. I still haven’t forgiven you for that.”

–

Another two days, and still no news. They’ve moved their beds so that they’re next to each other on opposite sides of the forcefield that separates them, and it’s almost, almost like the last night they spent together.

“If they’re going to execute me too, at least I don’t have to live on without you,” says Grantaire.

“If they’re going to execute me, at least I don’t have to watch them execute you,” says Enjolras in return. Enjolras has forgiven him by now, he thinks.

–

They finally get a visitor.

“Cosette?” Enjolras frowns, and rushes forward; Grantaire tumbles to his feet, nerves battle-ready. They're like a breeze of fresh air, delicate and elegant. A guard carries a chair for them, sets it in front of Enjolras’ cell and bows, leaving them alone.

"It's _Your Imperial Majesty_ now," says Cosette, smiling.

"Since when?" asks Enjolras, eyes wide.

"Father was assassinated two days ago," Cosette says, matter-of-factly. They splay their hand across the forcefield separating the two of them, and Enjolras reaches out to match it. Like this, they look like mirror images of each other, both regal and almost unbearably beautiful. The differences are slight, but easy to spot once Grantaire looks a little bit longer. He prefers Enjolras, he thinks, but then, he is biased.

"Assassinated?" Enjolras is frowning, trying to work out the situation without having all of the pieces in place.

"It was such a shame," says Cosette, smiling brightly. "Just as he was about to order your execution, too!"

"Such a shame," echoes Enjolras. Neither of them sound very upset about it. Chills run down Grantaire's back. He forgets sometimes that Enjolras is royalty, disowned as they are. But seeing them like this, there's a certain aura, a certain power that emanates from the two of them. He's a little bit terrified.

They're silent for a moment. "I'm sorry," says Enjolras. "I never wanted you to be put in this position."

Cosette clucks their tongue. "I'm not you, Enjolras dearest. I plan to utilise this opportunity."

Enjolras looks confused. Cosette shakes their head. "Enjolras, I am the political head of a _galaxy_. Do you know what that means? I can abolish and institute laws as I wish. Redistribute taxes and resources as I see fit. I can _help_ people."

"The Imperial Alliance does not _help_ people," scoffs Enjolras. "We shouldn't even exist. Are you listening to yourself? How could one person hold all that power over so many?"

Cosette just levels a look at them. Enjolras has a similar one, for when he thinks Grantaire is being deliberately obtuse. It's startlingly familiar, and makes Grantaire stifle a laugh. "You're being dense," says Cosette primly.

"I like you," says Grantaire, which is a terribly informal thing to say to the Imperial Ruler of the human race.

Cosette beams at him. "I like you too."

Enjolras scowls at the two of them. "Right, fine. Whatever. If you two are done – if father is dead – are you letting us out of here?"

Cosette blinks. "What? Don't be silly, I can't do that."

"What?"

"You're a traitor to the crown. I can't just let you go free."

"I –" says Enjolras. "You _are_ the crown. You were just telling me how you could do whatever you wanted to."

Cosette sighs, and drags the chair over so they're sitting opposite Grantaire instead. "No sense of tact, this one," they say to Grantaire, ignoring Enjolras like they're a child having a tantrum. "It's like they don't understand that my power base is weak, virtually non-existent right now. I have to consolidate before I do anything dramatic."

Grantaire nods. "You need all the high-ranking officials to be on your side and figure out who's loyal. Letting go of a high profile prisoner isn't the way to do that."

"So you're just going to leave us in here then," says Enjolras incredulously.

Cosette stands and shakes out their skirts. "Don't be absurd. I'm going to publicly execute you."

**The End...?**


	8. Chapter 8

_Epilogue_

The whole thing is broadcast. It’s not a live spectacle, of course, because that would be terribly gauche; live executions with audiences haven’t been done in centuries. They are, however, taken to state rooms – not the ones Cosette will now use to hold Council sessions but one that lie mostly unused apart from when there are public tours – where they’ve been emptied but for two heavy chairs, side by side.

“They look like thrones,” murmurs Enjolras.

“Probably deliberate,” says Grantaire.

Grantaire is in his flamboyant pirate gear. Enjolras isn’t sure where Cosette got a hold of it, or indeed why they’re both dressed up so fine, but the long plush coat is near identical to the one Grantaire had on when they pirated that private yacht. His hair is bouncy, the way it only is after washing, and he looks – well, quite raking next to Enjolras, who is in their Imperial uniform, re-tailored to fit a leaner, more muscled body now. The uniform is white, almost blinding in the daylight that streams in from the large windows that make up one entire wall. Enjolras, naturally, keeps frowning at it.

They take their seats, and look like Lords of old if not for the bindings that wrap loosely around their forearms. The needles are still out of sight. A few Council members and officials file in, and Enjolras notes that they’re all of the older generation – his grandfather’s closest supporters, like Gillenormand. Cosette is noticeably absent.

“Any last words?” asks the executioner.

“Vive la Revolution,” Grantaire says, unable even at the last moment to be anything but slightly derisive, slightly sarcastic, entirely himself. He tips his hand backwards, and their chairs are just close enough that his knuckles brush against the back of Enjolras’ hand; they link their fingers together.

“The old Emperor’s last wish was that I die,” says Enjolras. They've been thinking about these last words for a long time. “I may die, but the old regime dies with me.”

They die holding hands.

-

_Epilogue II_

“Well,” says Grantaire. “That was exciting.”

“They did a very good job on your likeness,” says Enjolras, pausing the broadcast and leaning in to scrutinise Grantaire’s head, now lolled to one side as drugs from the needle race through their simulacrum’s veins. Enjolras is still damp from the shower, and is wearing nothing but the towel, which is draped across their shoulders.

“You look lovely in that uniform,” says Grantaire. “Do you think we could get a replica of it somewhere?”

Enjolras snorts, and shakes wet droplets onto Grantaire. Their hair is starting to grow out again. They suspect Grantaire likes it, given the way he rifles his fingers through the loose curls over and over when Enjolras rests their head in Grantaire's lap. They might leave it for a little bit. They scrub at their hair with the towel, bemused at the fact that they can do things like that now. Pick what clothes they wants to wear, and not worry about whether it’s a uniform, or a good-enough disguise. Grow their hair as long or as short as they want to. Share a bed with who they want to.

In the meantime, Grantaire is idly flicking through the other channels they get this far out. It cuts to the opening commentary before Cosette’s birthday speech. It's not actually their birthday, of course, just the official date chosen to celebrate all Imperial rulers' birthdays strategically placed between other notable days of the year, but it's still a galaxy-wide holiday with huge on-planet celebrations and they had obviously had their Imperial birthday expedited to be as soon as possible.

It’s not at the Imperial Palace this year, possibly as a political move and possibly also because Grantaire’s virus had finally kicked in, and all the automated processes are on the fritz. The heating comes on at strange times of day, half the doors no longer open and the elevator buttons all redirect to unexpected floors – and that’s just the harmless operational side of it. Instead, it’s at one of Cosette’s personal estates at Rue Plument, a lovely house to be sure but much more modest.

Cosette is resplendent in their Imperial dress, which is white threaded with gold embroidery, and so enormous Enjolras quite fears they might be drowned in it. Their hair is coiled around their head, braided and threaded through with flowers instead of a crown. It still looks beautiful, but it is impossible to deny the significance of it.

"Cosette’s going to be a good ruler," says Grantaire.

"They are,” agrees Enjolras, tugging the remote out of Grantaire’s hands and switching the broadcast off. The actual speech, Enjolras already knows, will focus on electing a new panel of councillors and focussing on the sustainability of farming planets, is eloquent, hopeful and an absolute declaration of change in policies. They don’t need to watch the actual thing.

Instead, they open the shutters to the window of their private ‘borrowed’ yacht. Outside, multi-coloured balls of fire rain across space, streaking right over their heads before bursting into effervescent explosions that rock the small yacht slightly. Grantaire lets Enjolras redirect his attention, pulling Enjolras down onto the bed and rolling them both so that Grantaire is curled against Enjolras’ naked chest to watch the falling stars.

It feels a lot like a perfect ending.

**-**

_Epilogue III_

A klaxon blares out when they’re both starting to doze off, warm and nestled against each other.

Their loudspeakers turn on, a brief moment of static before a voice comes through. “Attention! Attention! Please prepare to be boarded by... the dread ship Musain!”

Enjolras grabs for their clothes even as Grantaire attempts to snatch them first. Enjolras shoves him away playfully, and drags a shirt on just as there is the sound of a docking tunnel connecting with their ship. They’re just about dressed when a small face pops out of the end of the tunnel upside down, wild and cheerful and entirely _un_ expected.

“Come on, you two, honeymoon’s over. We’ve got _Separatists_ to meet.”

“Gavroche?” asks Enjolras. “What’re you doing here?”

“ _Pirates_ ,” says the youngest and smallest of the Imperial line cheerfully. “ _So cool_. ‘sides, they needed a new pilot after theirs ran off to elope with a dead person.”

Grantaire and Enjolras exchange looks; Grantaire is obviously struggling to hide a grin and Enjolras can feel their own lips tugging up in the same way. “Back to work?” asks Grantaire.

Enjolras leans forward to kiss him. “Back to work.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://defractum.tumblr.com)!


End file.
